


you were a fire caught

by therestlessbrook



Category: Daredevil (TV), The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, Angst, Canon Rewrite, Daemons, Eventual Romance, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-20
Updated: 2020-09-26
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:02:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 26,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23748037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/therestlessbrook/pseuds/therestlessbrook
Summary: They’re both hunters - but of a different sort.(Or that daemon AU no one asked for.)
Relationships: Frank Castle/Karen Page
Comments: 196
Kudos: 379





	1. Chapter 1

The night that Karen loses her mother is the night her dæmon settles.

Karen isn’t at the hospital. Her father left her in charge—thirteen, he says, is old enough to handle the house and Kevin. Not that Kevin needs much handling; he’s always been a smiling, easy-going brother. But he’s smiled a little less these last few months, and he’s taken to camping on her bedroom floor in a sleeping bag, his own dæmon curled up beneath his arm. Karen lays in bed, unsleeping, her fingers stroking Perry’s soft fur. He’s taken the form of a squirrel, his tail lashing back and forth—a physical manifestation of the anxiety she cannot allow Kevin to see.

She hears the click and thump of the front door being unlocked, then locked again. Footsteps against the floor, heavy and slow. Then the creak of her father’s door, farther along the hall. He doesn’t check on Karen, doesn’t look into her bedroom. Her own door is cracked a little, light from the hallway nightlight piercing the dark. Her mother liked to keep a nightlight there, in case she needed to use the bathroom.

Karen hears the sob. It’s a broken little noise. And she knows. She knows in that way—that gut-deep instinct that cannot be denied.

Her mom’s gone. Slipped away in the small hours of the night.

Perry shudders, presses against her neck. Peredur—Perry, as she’s called him for as long as she can remember—has always favored smaller, nimble forms. Lean foxes and ravens, sleek cats and snakes. He’s an inquisitive dæmon, always investigating corners and testing boundaries.

Karen cups his back so that when’s he sits up, he won’t fall off. Small claws sink into her t-shirt as she rises. She steps around Kevin; he is deeply asleep, his mouth parted and dæmon still. She tries to keep her footsteps silent so as not to wake him.

She opens the door. Her parents’ bedroom is shut, but she can still hear her father. Unabashed crying, a loose torrent of emotion that Karen can’t face yet. She’s not sure she’ll ever be ready to face it.

She reaches down, unplugs the hallway nightlight. Mom was the only person who wanted it so she wouldn’t trip on the way to the bathroom—and without her here, it feels fitting to have the night close in. Karen’s fingers curl around the still-hot bulb; a burn rises on her thumb. 

Walking back into her room, Karen sits on her bed and places the nightlight on her windowsill. Her fingers are burning painfully, and her eyes are scratchy and dry. She has to suck in breath after breath, feeling like there’s not enough air in the world to fill her lungs.

Perry crawls down her arm, into her lap. He’s shifted forms into something she’s never seen before. He’s long and slender, with long fur of reddish gray and adorably rounded ears. His eyes are a dark gold and his mouth is hooked up like he’s smiling. “What’s that?” she says, touching one of his small paws. He looks down at himself, as if surprised.

“Don’t know,” he replies, turning in a circle. He eyes his own tail with curiosity. “I—I changed.”

“Change back,” she says, feeling a little panicked. She isn’t sure why, of all things, seeing Perry in a new form is what sets her off. Her mother is dead, her dad is sobbing in another room, and now she’s looking at Perry with something like distrust.

“I can’t,” he says, sounding equally uneasy. He closes his dark-golden eyes, then reopens them. “I think… I think this is us now.”

It’s the last form he will ever take—and it isn’t until after the funeral that Karen bothers to look up what species he is.

She has always wanted something with wings, something that could fly away from her small town. But now she finds herself staring at a mongoose.

For those first few days, Karen feels a a small twinge of disappointment. She cannot understand why Perry would take such a form. Mongooses aren’t exactly common. She always expected to end up with a crow or maybe a seagull. She isn’t sure what to do with him now; he isn’t big enough to defend her, strong enough to help out at the diner, or able to fly. He’s just… small and sleek and fast. He’s also cuddly, and likes to spend his time around her shoulders or under her jacket, out of the cold. Maybe his form is some big cosmic mistake.

It will be years later, when she sees the black mamba at Fisk’s side, that she realizes perhaps her dæmon’s form wasn’t a mistake at all.

* * *

Frank Castle’s dæmon settles when he’s sixteen.

It’s a little late, but his mom always reassures him that some people take longer to settle than others. Astraea doesn’t mind; she enjoys the fluidity of her forms, capable of being a large wolf one moment and a slender lynx the next. She has a certainty, a calm that he’s never managed to achieve.

Frank himself is restless and irritable, energy simmering just beneath his skin. The world feels at once too big and too small, and he’s chafing at the restrictions at home. Mom and Dad are older than most other parents, and he can already see how fallible they are. He could go out and get into a fight, smoke with the stoner kids behind the shop classroom, or stay out all night—and they couldn’t do anything about it. He’s both invigorated by that knowledge and resentful of it. Other kids go years before realizing their parents are just people, but not him.

“You’re going to get us into trouble,” Astraea says, trotting along at his side after school.

“Who cares,” he says, with a shrug. “It’s just a study period. We can skip.”

She gives him a flat stare. She’s in her lynx form, making every step silent as she pads alongside him. They sneak out behind the bleachers, just to feel the sun and the fresh air.

That’s where he hears the crying.

It isn’t human. It’s animal—and the sound sets his teeth on edge. He walks through the long grasses around back, his fists already clenched.

There are two boys, both of them seniors. They’re far taller than he is, both bulky from lifting weights all through high school. Their dæmons are settled: a monkey and a dog. Between them is a crow.

It’s just a normal crow, no one’s dæmon. Its wing is crooked, and it’s crying out as the boys throw rocks at it. Astraea hisses, lips lifting away from razor-sharp fangs.

“Hey,” says Frank sharply.

The other boys look at him. They’re still smiling, easy-going in their casual cruelty. “You want in on this?” one asks. “You’re… I’ve seen you before. You’re on the boxing team, right?”

“Yeah,” says Frank. “I am. Which is why you’re gonna stop throwing shit at that crow.”

The second boy laughs. “Are we?” He looks to the other one. “Are you?”

The other one is unconcerned. “You know, I don’t think I’m going to.” He glances at Frank, then back at the bird. “Found him all hopping around out here. He’s dead anyways.”

Frank’s fists clench. “Back the fuck off,” he says. “Now.”

They laugh again, but before they can utter another word, something flashes down from the sky. It’s a blur, moving so fast that even Frank’s eyes can’t follow it.

A raptor—a hawk. It slams into the monkey, talons flashing in the sunlight.

Astraea. His Astraea. She pins the monkey in place, stunning him with the force of the blow.

The first senior falls to the ground, crying out with pain. The second looks too startled to react, his dæmon gone still. Astraea doesn’t rip into the monkey the way Frank’s seen hawks do on nature videos; rather, she just holds him in place.

“Get the crow,” she says to Frank, and he understands. He hurries forward, picking up the crow carefully. Astraea releases the monkey, flapping up to Frank’s shoulder.

“Son of a bitch,” snarls the first senior. “Get him!”

They don’t catch him. It’s one of the few times Frank runs from a fight—because if there’s one thing Dad has drilled into him, it’s that only assholes take pleasure in hurting the helpless. Kids, girls, pets—they’re off limits. Frank only fights boys his own age or older, and no one that couldn’t take him.

Frank ends up taking the crow to a teacher who calls animal control. He doesn’t tell the teacher about the two boys, because he’s not a snitch. The crow goes to some bird rehabilitation center—and the two seniors find Frank a few hours later and beat the shit out of him.

Frank goes home, bloodied but satisfied.

Astraea sits on his knee at home, as he tries to wipe the blood away from his nose with a damp washcloth. She hasn’t changed back. She hasn’t changed at all.

He looks down at her: a brown and white hawk, with bright yellow eyes and wickedly sharp talons. It’s days later, when he realizes that she’s settled, that he’ll look it up.

A northern goshawk.

Well, at least she isn’t a goddamn monkey.

* * *

Mongooses are hunters.

Karen knows what most people think when they see her dæmon. Perry is five pounds of fluff with a long tail, dark eyes, and a mouth that always looks as if he’s smiling. Quite frankly, he’s adorable. He’s playful and looks a little like a fur scarf with eyes and legs when he sits astride her shoulders.

But while mongooses will feed on carrion or eggs if they can be stolen, most prefer live prey: rodents, lizards, insects, snakes, even small birds. They’re opportunistic predators, taking food where they can find it. The Indian gray mongoose—and that would be Perry’s type—are famous for being cobra-killers. A mongoose has razor-sharp teeth, fast reflexes, and is immune to neurotoxins. They will run circles around snakes that could kill full-grown men with a single bite—around and around, until the snake is exhausted. Then a mongoose will lunge and sever the snake’s spine with a single snap of its jaws. When their prey is paralyzed, the mongoose will drag it away.

He may be be five pounds of fluff—but Perry has teeth.

Karen likes to think she and Perry have that in common.

When she moves to New York, she finds a shitty apartment that she immediately has to break the lease on—because her coworker gets murdered in it. She finds a job that frames her for that murder. And then she finds another job, with Nelson & Murdock.

Matt Murdock looks every bit a cliche upon first meeting. He’s a lawyer with an owl for a dæmon. Owls are supposed to be academic creatures, or at least that’s the way they always seem in animated films. Which fits Matt’s personality perfectly—quiet, unassuming, and sharply witty at times.

Foggy has a poodle. It gets a few laughs out of other people, but what most people don’t understand is that poodles are smart. And so is Foggy. He’ll be a powerhouse of a lawyer if he ever manages to believe in himself, Karen reflects after seeing him in the courtroom a few times. And besides, Foggy’s dæmon is loyal and big enough to look threatening if a client gets out of hand. 

It’s a good new life, Karen reflects. Working with Nelson & Murdock.

This is the kind of life she has always wanted: where she can—

Well, not atone. Not exactly.

But she can make a difference here.

* * *

Nothing makes a goddamn bit of difference.

That’s what Frank Castle thinks as he sits in the infirmary, getting his wounds stitched shut. Nothing’ll change. He saved as many as he could, but it doesn’t matter. That Agent Orange will keep pushing good soldiers into bad decisions, will keep getting people killed.

Astraea says, “We should have killed him.”

Frank grunts. “I tried.” The inside of his mouth tastes of stale copper.

Astraea is favoring her left wing; one of the enemy’s dæmons slashed through her wing. It’s a superficial wound and she’s pulling bloody feathers out, trying to clean herself. He puts a hand on her back, takes some comfort in her presence. She stops grooming for a few moments and nudges affectionately at his fingers.

She’s been a good companion through all of the fights. A second pair of sharp eyes is invaluable to a sniper—and she’s taken down some of her own kills, silenced dæmons before their humans had a chance to scream. They’re both well-suited to war and hunting; it’s in their nature. But this is the first time he’s ever felt dirtied by his own work. Operation Cerberus is fucked up and—and all right, maybe he was a little fucked up for going along with it for so long, but that last fight was it. The last fight. He’s not doing this again, not for Agent Orange, not even for Schoonover—who’s headed back to the states.

Frank’s done with this. Bill was right—it’s time to get out.


	2. Chapter 2

It’s a sunny day.

Frank’s forearms are bare, exposing a few old scars as the sunlight beats down on his skin. Astraea is on the grass nearby, nosing through the greenery. Maria’s dæmon flutters around her—moth wings beautiful as any painting. Maria herself is smiling, trying to keep her dark hair out of her eyes every time a stray breeze passes over them. Frankie is a few feet away, complaining that he wanted to go with Uncle Billy, that this family outing is boring and they could have gone someplace more exciting. A bulldog romps around his feet.

Lisa is eating a sandwich and rolling her eyes at her brother. Her dæmon is in her hair—his tiny lizard feet grasping at the silky strands that have escaped her ponytail.

“What?” she says, catching him looking. He reaches out, ruffles her hair affectionately. She laughs and leans into him; this will probably change in a year or two, when she shifts from easy-going child to moody teenager. But right now, she’s still not too embarrassed to be seen with her old man.

“Nothing,” he says. He gives her ponytail a gentle tug. “Just good to be home.” Her dæmon blinks sleepily at him, clearly enjoying the warmth of the sun. Then he ducks back into Lisa’s hair, vanishing from sight. A moment later, he shifts forms and flutters out of her hair—this time as a small sparrow.

“Hey, Corin,” Lisa says, reaching up to grab at her dæmon. “That tickles. Get out of there.”

It’s good, being home. Frank can breathe, can take a full fucking breath for the first time in months. There’ll be things to hash out later—he needs to talk to some people, let them know he’s done with the corps. They’ll be disappointed but not surprised; he’s already served over a decade. He can stay home with the kids for a while, figure out what to do next. Curt’s started selling insurance and Bill’s doing some private security start-up. Maybe he could get in on that.

“Hey,” Lisa says, and hands him a sandwich. “You hungry?”

“Thanks, sweetheart.” He takes it with a smile.

Lisa looks at him, and abruptly some of her brightness fades.

“What is it?” asks Frank.

She shrugs, looks away. The sparrow between her fingers gives one flutter of his wings then begins pecking at her sandwich. She ignores her dæmon. “Nothing.”

“You can tell me,” he says.

She shrugs. “I’m just happy you’re home.”

“Clearly,” he says, a little dryly. “I could tell from your frown.”

She gives him a flat look that is so reminiscent of his own teenager days that he has the sinking feeling she might be closer to those moodier days than he first thought. “I just… how long this time?”

“How long what?” It takes a few seconds for him to get it. “Ah. You mean how long until I go back?”

She nods, seeming to brace herself for his answer. Astraea walks across the grass toward them; she’s far less coordinated on the ground than in the air. She comes over to nudge at the dæmon in Lisa’s hand. He flutters up and out of Lisa’s grip, twittering around Astraea’s head. She allows this with a certain amount of affectionate tolerance.

Frank watches all of this, then he meets Lisa’s gaze. She’s scared and she’s not hiding that. He’s always liked that about her—she’s never been a good liar, never even tried. She’s forthright and he hopes she’ll stay that way. “I’m not going back,” he says quietly.

She blinks. “What?”

“I’m staying,” he says. “For good, this time.”

Hope flashes across her face, swiftly followed by distrust. “You—you’re sure?”

He nods. “Your mom and I talked about it this morning. I’ve done my part. I think it’s time to spend more time at home.”

All of the distrust collapses into something like relief. “They’ll let you?”

“Yeah,” he says. He reaches over, puts his arm around her and draws her close. Her chin is sharp against his shoulder and her fingers are tight on his shirt. Her hugs are always desperately tight, as if she’s afraid to let go.

When she draws away, she looks as though she’s fighting back tears. She takes a few shuddering breaths, then says, “You do realize you’re going to have to clean all of Frankie’s stuff out of the piano, right?”

Frank frowns. “He’s hiding stuff _in_ the piano?”

Lisa nods. “Before you try and play it or tune it up—yeah. You should look in the back. Where do you think Mom’s emergency stash of chocolate went?”

“It’s going to be full of ants, isn’t it?”

“Still sure you want to stay home?” she says, smiling.

He nods. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m sure.”

She grins at him, sunlight streaming through her hair. She’s so beautiful—open and smiling.

Then she frowns, tilts her head. “Was that—did you hear something?”

Astraea suddenly spreads her wings. She takes to the air, swooping upward the way she always does when they’re doing recon—

And that’s when Frank hears the sound of a man screaming.

* * *

The gun is cold against her hands.

Karen knows how to hold it—all of the memories flood back to her in a moment. Her finger curls around the trigger, touching but not squeezing.

James Wesley sits across from her. He’s calm, his face tolerant and amused. His hand is clamped around Perry, pinning the mongoose to the table.

It’s suffocating for both of them. Karen can’t draw a full breath, can barely even think. But she has the gun—and he has her dæmon. Wesley’s own dæmon stands behind him—a goose. She would have been pretty, if not for her hissing.

“You really think I’d leave a loaded gun on the table?” he says, his voice easy and soothing.

Which is how she knows it’s loaded. He wouldn’t be trying to trick her so hard if it weren’t dangerous.

Karen is sick to her stomach; the drugs are roiling around in her belly and she’s still a little dizzy. She can’t throw up, can’t pass out. Not now. Not when Perry is in this man’s grip.

It’s one of the few times another person has ever touched her dæmon, and now she understands the taboo. It feels like a violation, like he’s pried open her ribs and is digging around her organs.

“Let my dæmon go,” she says quietly.

The goose lets out another low hiss. Wesley glances at his dæmon, then says to Karen, “I don’t think so. We still need to talk—”

Karen pulls the trigger.

It’s not the first time she’s killed a person. She killed her brother, but that was different. That was blurry vision and her eyes not on the road, her bloody nostrils dragging in heaving breaths. That was drugs and bad judgement.

This time, she makes it a choice.

Wesley jerks, looks down at himself in surprise. Blood blooms across his white shirt; his grip on Perry slackens. Her dæmon darts out from beneath his hand, rushing across the table.

Karen pulls the trigger again. And again and again and again until the chamber is empty and she’s gasping.

She knows the moment that Wesley dies—because his goose dæmon goes still… and then vanishes into ash.

Wesley’s cheek hits the table between them. Karen doesn’t release the gun; her hand won’t respond to any signals from her brain. But she does extend her other hand for Perry. He rushes into her arm, presses himself tightly against her. “We’re okay,” he whispers. “We’re okay.”

She’s shaking. Adrenaline is beginning to set in, and she has to act. The gun and the evidence needs to be disposed of. She has to get out of here, has to shower away any traces of the drug or blood or gunpowder.

She won’t go to Matt or Foggy. She won’t put them in any more danger from Fisk than they already are.

She rushes out of the building, leaving behind a cooling corpse and a few scattered ashes. Karen’s breaths are coming in ragged heaves; Perry is curled around her neck, whispering reassurances but she doesn’t hear them.

James Wesley deserves death as much as Fisk does, but Karen never wanted to be the one to dole it out.

* * *

_—a_

_—sa_

_—Lisa_

_LISA._

Frank sucks in a ragged breath. His throat is sore, as if he’s been ill for weeks on end. His body is barely under his control and he blinks rapidly, heart throbbing like he just ran a marathon. Something’s wrong. He’s injured or ill—but alive.

_Alive?_

“Alive.” That sounds like Astraea’s voice.

He’s pretty sure.

There are sedatives in his system, wires hooked up to his chest. An IV in one arm. And a man leaning over him, looking terrified.

Frank’s fingers are knotted in the man’s mint-green scrubs. He’s pulled him down, acted purely on instinct. He must be in a hospital, because there are wild beeping noises and the smell of plastic.

Astraea is beside him, resting on his other wrist. Her feathers are matted and messy and there’s a pain in her he has never sensed before. It feels like someone clipped her wings, taken from her the very joy of the open skies. Like they’ve been—

_Oh._

The memories don’t slam into him—if they did, it would probably kill him right then and there. Instead, there’s a few sensations. Blood-sticky hair against his fingers, the smell of smoke, screaming all around him.

Astraea makes a soft keening sound.

“Gone,” she whispers.

No. It can’t—it can’t be true. None of it. This is some fucked up fever dream; he’s back overseas, he hasn’t even come home yet—

“Home,” he whispers.

The nurse is shaking. “What?”

“Take me home,” Frank rasps.

* * *

Much to her surprise, Karen lives.

She lives through Fisk’s war against Hell’s Kitchen—and against all odds, good wins out. That vigilante chains him up long enough for the cops to get there, and justice wins the day.

But Ben’s gone, and so are many others. The price for taking down Fisk was paid in blood.

Karen tries to do better for them. She tries to work hard at Nelson & Murdock, tries to keep the business running while Foggy and Matt attempt to do their own good. Perry has taken to sleeping in her top drawer at work because she’ll spend so many hours there.

It’s good work and she likes it.

She and Perry both enjoy New York. They like the chaos and the anonymity, the way there’s always plenty of places to eat and to go. Perry loves the take-out as much as she does, sampling flavors they could never find in Fagan Corners. They like going out to Josie’s with Matt and Foggy. Foggy’s poodle dæmon always likes sniffing at Perry then usually tries to lick him. Perry will scuttle around the poodle’s feet until she’s dizzy trying to keep up, and Foggy will tease Karen for having a dæmon who enjoys making other people run in circles. Matt’s snowy owl is calm and watchful, perched on his shoulder or on a piece of high furniture. She’s gorgeous, and more than once Karen wonders what it would be like to touch those feathers. She would never, of course. She still remembers how it felt to have a stranger’s hands on Perry—she won’t do that to Matt.

It’s a good few months.

She should have known the peace could never last.

A man approaches them at Josie’s, asks for help. He calls himself Grotto. Something’s wrong, but Karen can’t put her finger on it until Perry whispers in her ear. “He’s bleeding.”

Then Grotto falls to the floor, and Karen has the sinking feeling that everything’s about to go to hell.

* * *

His fingers are sore from loading his gun.

His fingernails are ragged; it always takes some work to press in the last three bullets of his pistol. There’s a permanent crease on his thumb that usually only appears when he’s at war, when he’s overseas.

He’s not overseas, but he’s still at war.

Frank hunts.

He has to keep hunting because if he doesn’t, he’ll have to stop. He’ll have to sleep long enough to have nightmares, have to let the memories slip into conscious thought, have to remember the sound of his daughter screaming or the sensation of blood across his fingers.

He hunts because he couldn’t hunt that day. He tried to defend, tried his hardest to keep them safe, but he couldn’t.

_Please—I’ve got the book—_

_Not tonight, sweetheart._

He failed. He failed the only real test that ever mattered.

So he spends his days tracking down three criminal gangs; he puts together rifles; he tracks movements of shipments; he observes people’s comings and goings; he makes lists and plans. Astraea helps with recon and comments on the guns; her own anger burns as hot as his.

In those small hours when he tries to sleep, he hears her keening quietly. Mourning for their children, their spouse, their whole life. They couldn’t protect what mattered most.

There will be no forgiveness, no happy endings.

The hunt is the closest thing he can come to penance.

* * *

Karen hears the slice of wings through air. And then the bark of gunfire.

Perry is at Karen’s feet, chittering nervously as she tries to haul Grotto out of his hospital room. “He’s coming,” says Perry urgently. “We have to get out of here.”

“What do you think I’m doing,” Karen says through gritted teeth. “Come on.” She snarls at Grotto to hurry, then yanks at the fire alarm. The siren bursts to life, making her wince with the noise. It isn’t enough to drown out the sound of gunfire—or the sound of wings.

She glances back and sees the form of a hawk. The dæmon cuts through air, twisting around others and dodging the crowds of nurses and patients. Karen pushes open the emergency fire door and shoves Grotto through it. Perry rushes down the stairs. Grotto’s dæmon, a rat, is tucked down his hospital clothes. She wishes there was time to bar the door behind them, but she has neither moments nor anything to use as a barrier.

So she runs. Heart throbbing in her chest, she runs. Down the stairs, out of the hospital, to Ben’s car.

The window gets blown out by another bullet and Karen lets out an involuntary noise of fear. She yanks the car into gear, slams on the gas.

She half-expects to feel a bullet slice into her; it would be fitting, after all. She killed a man with a gun, surely the universe is trying to set the scales. To balance things, so that Karen will feel everything that James Wesley felt in that moment.

She wonders if she’ll know the moment Perry turns to ash—or if she’ll be in too much pain to notice. Perry is in her lap, squeaking as she drives as fast as she dares. She waits for the pain, waits for the end, but it never comes. She turns around a corner, away from the hospital.

The last thing she hears is the shrill, lonely cry of a hawk.

* * *

Frank hates hospitals.

He hates fighting through them—and he hates waking up in them.

He’d expected to die in that cemetery, with a masked man playing at being the devil and a headstone to Frank’s back.

He’s handcuffed to a hospital bed. Everything smells too clean and antiseptic.

There’s no way he could escape even if he weren’t chained down. His body feels waterlogged, like a newspaper left in a gutter. He’s all broken and torn, his attention fading in and out. They keep him heavily sedated at first, which is almost a relief. The drugs put him into a dreamless sleep, far away from the nightmares or the memories.

But the drugs also keep him separated from Astraea. When he’s out, he can’t feel her presence. He has to crane his neck around, glance to his right. She’s been chained down, too. There’s a band around one leg and a hood around her head. It looks like falconry gear, but it’s meant to restrain a dæmon. Frank tries to reach for her, but his own restrains keep him down. Metal clanks against the plastic of the bed.

Astraea says, “You’re awake.”

“Yeah,” he croaks. “What happened?”

“They caught us,” she says simply. Like they’re kids again, and Frank was trespassing in a neighbor’s yard.

“You all right?”

The goshawk ruffles her feathers in irritation. “They put this hood on me.”

“Yeah, sorry about that.”

“They touched me,” says Astraea, her tone sharp. And that’s when he gets it. He wasn’t awake to feel it—but other people putting their hands on her, probably roughly and without any care for breaking or bending her feathers… it would have been excruciating.

“Sorry,” he whispers. It’s yet another failure on his part. He should’ve been able to stop this.

Astraea tries to shuffle closer; her chain clanks. She puts her head down against the edge of the table, trying to reach him. “Not your fault. You didn’t cause this—that man did.”

At the thought of Daredevil, Frank feels his own flare of resentment. It would have been kinder to just let him die—but fucking Red had to do this. Had to give him to the cops and the EMTs, let Frank stew in his own misery.

He isn’t sure how many days pass; it could be a week or two. Time has no meaning—there’ll be a trial and he’ll be found guilty. His future isn’t difficult to fathom.

Or at least—it isn’t until she walks in.


	3. Chapter 3

Goshawks are savage hunters.

Karen looks up the breed as she’s digging into the Castle case. She knows very little about hawks, so she finds herself doing an internet search. Dæmons aren’t supposed to be a literal translation of their human’s nature, but Karen has come to see the similarities in those around her. Matt and his owl are both quiet and watchful, intelligent and determined. Foggy and his poodle are warm and funny and utterly devoted to those they care about.

She wants more insight into Frank Castle, so she looks into his dæmon.

Northern goshawks are popular among those who practice falconry because they’re both ferocious and trainable— _most_ of the time. They’re one of the most effective hunting birds, with amazingly sharp eyesight and the instinct to give chase to anything that flees, from squirrels to other raptors. They will stalk prey relentlessly through forests, even into water if necessary. They’re known to be possessive birds; there’s a warning on the website that once a goshawk has imprinted on a human, they can be aggressive.

They also mate for life. When chicks are hatched, it is the male who retrieves most of the food while the female remains with their offspring. Both parents will fiercely defend their young—even going so far as to attack humans that come too close to their nests.

As for Castle and his dæmon—Karen can see how they fit together. Pieces of a puzzle, their edges snapping together once all of the evidence is laid out before her.

Perry is the one to find Frank Castle’s file. When they go to the DA’s office, it’s Perry who knocks a cup of coffee ‘accidentally’ into Blake Tower’s lap. He lurches to his feet, waving off Karen’s hasty apologies for her clumsy dæmon. Then he’s out in the hallway, rushing toward the nearest restroom to blot the coffee from his expensive trousers. His dæmon, a rooster, glares at Perry as she hurries after her human. Karen waits until they’re both out of earshot, then Perry is on the desk, pushing through the files and papers with his tiny paws.

“Hurry up,” he snaps. “I don’t have hands for this.”

Karen nods and pulls open the file drawer. Perry leaps into it, glancing over the names. “Got it.”

They snatch up the file, Karen shoving it under her coat. Perry leaps atop her shoulders and they leave as quickly as they can, the smell of coffee following them home.

They spread out the papers in her apartment.

The file is surprisingly thick: there’s a police report about a shooting in a car, a DNR, sheafs of hospital records, and finally—an x-ray. It’s thin and glossy against her fingertips, and she touches the shadow along the left side of the skull.

“Bullet wound,” she murmurs. “He should be dead.”

“So should we,” says Perry.

And maybe that’s why she cannot let go of this case. Maybe it’s why she follow the lead from the hospital to an address, why she finds herself breaking into what looks like a thoroughly suburban house.

They walk through the house like ghosts, glancing over pictures and notes and bouquets of dead flowers.

The Punisher once had a family—he served in the Marines, won commendations and kissed his wife.

Little by little, she sees Frank Castle. But still, it isn’t enough.

She and Perry leave the house with more questions than answers.

It’s why she argues for defending him, why she refuses to sign the public defender’s witness statement, why she helps convince Foggy that they should help, and why she allows herself to be searched—twice—on the way into Frank Castle’s hospital room.

She can’t let this go. And again, she’s reminded of those videos of mongooses going deadly snakes: circling, circling, circling, waiting for an opening until the reptile is too tired to fight back.

That’s how Karen feels now—like she’s circling the Punisher case, waiting for her opening.

When she’s standing in the hospital room, she finally gets that opening.

Frank Castle’s dæmon is brown and white. She’s beautiful, even chained and hooded. She perches on the table beside Castle’s hospital bed, her head cocked as she listens.

As for Frank Castle himself… Karen’s breath catches in her throat.

She wasn’t sure what to expect: she has seen him twice now—in the hospital when he hunted Grotto, and in his family pictures. In the former, he was a dark, intimidating figure in a black coat, every step graceful and intent. In his family photos, he was smiling and seemed far younger, pressing a kiss to his wife’s pregnant stomach or holding up one of his kids.

The man that is in the hospital is neither one of those men. This man is so bruised and beaten she wouldn’t have recognized him. His face is a mass of contusions and cuts, wires snaking out from beneath a hospital gown, and even with his eyes closed, he looks…

“Sad,” Perry whispers. He’s beneath her jacket, curled so that his tail is around her neck like a scarf. “They both look sad.”

Matt walks a few steps ahead of Karen, his snowy owl on his shoulder. The goshawk cocks her head even farther, seeming to sense the owl’s presence. Foggy’s poodle dæmon stays back, hackles and teeth at the ready, but pressed tightly against Foggy’s leg.

“Mr. Castle,” Matt begins, in his most professional of lawyer voices. Karen is barely listening; her gaze is on the goshawk. She ruffles her wings, and Karen has the distinct impression that the dæmon is bored with this meeting. She doesn’t care about her criminal case, and neither does her human.

They’ve given into despair—human and dæmon.

And that thought makes Karen unexpectedly angry.

Because his family is dead, and he’s _given up._

Frank Castle speaks like a man who doesn’t want anything to do with the world, who’s half-asleep—and it’s only after Karen crosses the taped line, shoving a photograph in his face, that he comes fully awake.

“You want answers? So do we, but none of us will get them if you're dead.”

Frank Castle blinks, and everything about him sharpens. She can see the man from the hospital—a predator with all of his focus on her. But she holds his gaze and doesn’t break it.

She’s a hunter, too.

The goshawk utters a soft cry. When Matt half-drags Karen back over the line and out of the room, she never looks away from Castle.

The next thing she knows, she’s leaning up against a wall and Matt is whispering that they have to be careful, and all Karen can think is how fast her heart is beating, how broken that man looked, and how the world feels a little unreal. Perry’s tail brushes her neck, and his nose nudges at the inside of her arm. “You okay?” he whispers.

He knows how she’s feeling; he doesn’t have to ask.

“Something’s wrong here,” she whispers. “The DA’s trying to cover it up.”

“We won’t let her,” says Perry, far more confident than she feels.

* * *

The woman—Karen Page—stands at the edge of the tape.

Her coworker, that Franklin Nelson, quietly shuts the door at her request. Leaving her alone with a killer. She’s strangely colorless beneath the stark hospital lights—pale skin and hair, eyes downcast. Her stance is uneasy, but that just means she isn’t stupid.

Frank knows how dangerous he is, how much a threat he poses. For her to stand alone in this room with him is proof that she’s no coward. That she’s nervous just means she’s smart enough to recognize danger.

“I wouldn’t have hurt you,” he says.

Her brows flash upward, and she seems to meet his gaze out of sheer incredulity. Her eyes are so goddamned blue; it’s like having a staring contest with a stormy sea.

“I wouldn’t have hurt you,” he repeats. “That night. When you were babysitting that shitbrick. Grotto—I wouldn’t have touched you or your dæmon. I only hurt people who deserve it.”

She has a cup of coffee; she must have convinced a nurse to show her where to find one. She touches the styrofoam cup to her lips, but she doesn’t take a sip. “How do you know I don’t deserve it?” she asks, voice deceptively light.

He lets out a breath that’s almost, but not quite, a laugh. “You do any hits for the mob?”

“No,” she says.

“Then you don’t deserve it.”

She takes a step closer. He can just see a tail wrapped around her neck. Her dæmon, whatever it is, looks small and furry. An otter, maybe. Or a ferret. “So that’s how you classify who deserves it or not?” she says. “There’s a big gap of morality between ’normal person’ and ‘mob hitter.’”

Whatever dæmon she has, he must be a ferocious little thing.

Astraea keeps shifting on the table, trying to get a look at Karen Page through her hood, but it’s of no use. The hawk ruffles her feathers in irritation.

“You didn’t leave him behind,” he says. “Grotto. You could’ve run—I was there. I saw you, how you protected him. Bad people, people I hunt—they wouldn’t do that. They’d have turned tail and gotten out.”

She blinks in surprise—as if she never even considered leaving Grotto behind.

“Now, ma’am,” he says, “I’d appreciate you telling me what you know about my family.”

* * *

Frank Castle keeps looking at her like he’s searching for something. Perry stays under her jacket, only glancing out through her collar or sleeve every so often. He nudges at the picture Karen has kept in her pocket, the one of the Castle family.

It takes some prodding, but slowly, she comes to understand why Frank Castle asked her to stay. He isn’t here for the lawyers at all. Castle asked Nelson & Murdock to be his representation because he needs to know what Karen knows about his family.

So she tells him. She tells him what she remembers of the house, the way the toys were scattered along the floor and the dishes washed. She tells him about the toys scattered along the floor, about how it smelled like old flowers and dust.

And little by little, she watches as the walls around Frank Castle begin to fall.

“He’d play soldier, you know,” Frank says, speaking about his son for the first time. “Him and his dæmon. She’d take on the form of a bulldog most of the time—and you could tell they were both trying to be terrifying but if you’ve ever been growled at by a puppy—”

“It’s adorable,” says Karen.

Frank nods. “Yeah. Frankie’d get mad when Lisa started laughing, and then that would only make his dæmon—her name was Portia—growl even harder. I couldn’t count how times I’d find Portia and Corin rolling around on the floor, while Lisa and Frankie were yelling at one another.”

The goshawk shuffles her wings, and something in the gesture speaks of fondness and amusement.

“Siblings,” says Karen, with her own small smile. “They know how to get under your skin like no one else. My brother—when he was young, he’d go in my room and steal toys when he thought I wasn’t looking. He didn’t even like puzzles, but I’d find pieces missing and they’d be under his bed.”

Frank nods, the corners of his mouth soft. “Yeah. That sounds about right.”

“I found a lot of plastic dinosaurs,” Karen says. “Were those his?” 

His face just lights up. “Those were my little girl's. Those were Lisa's. When she was little, she used to make these little noises when she played with them.”

Months later, Karen will realize this is the moment when things shift between them. It’s when his face lights up and his voice is quiet and reverent—when he talks about his daughter playing with tiny plastic toys. It’s something so small, something most people would have forgotten, but he hasn’t. And it’s evident that these memories are why he asked her to stay; because he has no one else to share them with. No one else cares.

That’s a painful realization, and it makes her want to reach out. To ignore the lines of tape.

So she does.

She steps over that line and gives him the picture of his family. It’s his—he should have it.

She knows what it is to lose people, how it can break someone wide open, change them. She’s lost so many people, too. She first found her solace in self-destruction—and after Kevin died, she found it in distraction. In work and people and the occasional drink. In puzzles.

Frank found his solace in something darker.

She remembers the scent of gunpowder in the air when she used to shoot ceramic statues for fun; she remembers how it smelled the same when she shot her boyfriend in the shoulder.

And she knows, in the deepest parts of herself, that if things had happened a little differently—if it had been Todd and not Karen herself that had caused Kevin’s death… she might have gone down a very different path.

* * *

Frank is going to trial.

It’s the only way to find out the truth, to uncover whatever the DA is hiding about the massacre. It’s another hunt, albeit in a different form. He’s going to find the truth, no matter what cost comes to him.

They take him to a jail. He’s healthy enough for the transfer—and now he’s in prison orange instead of hospital gowns. It’s a welcome change, even if orange really isn’t his color. Astraea remains hooded at all times; several guards have to adjust the hood, and their fingers are uncaring, too cold and prodding. It’s worse than the strip search when he’s first admitted. Astraea snaps at one of the guards and he strikes her—not hard enough to truly injure, but enough to stun her. Frank falls to the floor of his cell, dizzy and sick with the pain of it.

Fucking cowards. Going after a restrained dæmon instead of coming after him.

He’s in jail for only a few days when he’s told he has a visitor. His lawyer has come to speak with him.

Red. Frank’s hackles rise, and he’s almost glad for the visit. He needs someone to vent his anger upon, and Daredevil will be fine. Astraea utters a low cry when they’re pushed out of the cell, searched, and then put in a room for just this purpose. His hands are cuffed to a metal table, Astraea restrained in place, and then a door swings open.

Frank looks up, expecting a dark suit and white cane.

Instead, he sees her.

* * *

It’s when she goes to see Frank Castle in jail that she learns his dæmon’s name.

Frank’s hands are cuffed, his legs bound. He is chained to the table in every way a man can be. The goshawk is hooded, her talons restrained. But she looks haughty and no less beautiful. Frank’s bruises are turning shades of green and brown, but there’s a new life kindled in his eyes. A determination.

She sets down evidence in front of him, and they talk about his family and the park—and then, out of nowhere, Frank says, “What is he?”

Karen looks up. “What?”

Frank nods at her. “Your dæmon. Haven’t been able to get a good look at him. Otter?”

As is his habit, Perry is tucked inside of her coat. With a small sigh, Karen puts a hand inside of her pocket. Perry considers, then allows her to help him out. He scurries up her arm, sits on her shoulder.

“Mongoose,” says Karen.

The goshawk makes a soft sound. She keeps trying to tilt her head, to see through the hood.

It’s Perry who scurries onto the metal table. He hesitates for a moment, then he’s moving—tiny paws scrabbling at the chain, and then he pulls the hood from the goshawk. She gives a small shake of her head, her beak clicking in surprise. She looks down at the mongoose. The two dæmons stare at one another for a few heartbeats, seeming to take the other’s measure.

Perry rolls onto his back, pawing at the goshawk’s talons. It’s a trusting, playful little stance. The hawk stares down at him as if she doesn’t understand.

Perry wriggles around on his back, tail moving along the table as he tries to coax the hawk into a bit of frivolity. He nuzzles at one of the hawk’s talons. Dæmons can, and often do, touch one another. Perry is free to paw and nudge at the goshawk all he pleases—so long as he doesn’t mind if she retaliates.

But the hawk just seems more confused by the display of trust. Finally, she puts her head down near his and nibbles at one of his ears. Perry allows this for a few seconds, then rolls over and runs a full circle around the hawk. She gazes at him, then ruffles her feathers.

Perry returns to Karen, slipping into her jacket.

Frank moves, as though he wishes he could lay a hand against his dæmon’s back. But the handcuffs will not allow for it. A flash of frustration crosses his face. “The hood,” he says, a flex of his jaw make the words sound like a curse.

Karen understands at once. “It needs to go back, won’t it?”

“Or they’ll put it on her again,” says Frank.

Karen winces. It’s one thing for a dæmon to touch another, but for humans… it’s the worst of violations. And these guards probably aren’t all that gentle about it. “Sorry,” she says. “Perry can be a little impulsive. He probably just didn’t like seeing her like that.”

“Damn right I didn’t,” mutters Perry from inside her jacket. He squirms against her ribs, warm and soft. “It’s not right.”

Frank hesitates, and it’s an odd expression to see cross his face. She remembers the hospital room, when he stumbled over asking about his family and his home. There’s a vulnerability she did not expect, not from him. “They’re just going to—jam it on her. Won’t care if it hurts us.”

She knows what he’s asking for, even if he cannot say it aloud.

“You want me to put the hood back?” she asks. Perry doesn’t have the necessary dexterity to do it for her—he might have been able to pull it off, but he cannot put it back on.

Frank looks at her. He looks as though he’s peering into the heart of her, prying out secrets. Then, he nods.

Karen rises from her chair. Perry crawls up her jacket, peering out through the collar as Karen reaches out. She moves slowly, fingers inching through the air, so as not to frighten the goshawk. Her beak looks very sharp, capable of rending fresh with ease. She wonders how many of Frank’s kills were actually his dæmon’s—a hawk swooping down to silently strike one of the mobsters’ unsuspecting dæmons.

The goshawk gazes at Karen. Her gaze is sharp and unreadable. Then she fluffs up her feathers and shakes them out. It looks like the hawk equivalent of a shrug. Karen picks up the small hood, the kind used in falconry. Trying her best not to touch the goshawk too much, she slips the hood back over the dæmon’s head. “I’m sorry,” Karen says, as her fingers brush the feathers along the dæmon’s cheek and throat. They’re soft, a whisper against her fingertips. Without thinking, Karen’s thumb moves of its own accord: she touches the downy feathers at the corner of the dæmon’s beak.

A full-body shudder goes through Frank.

Shit. Karen recoils at once, her hands dropping away.

He won’t quite meet her eyes when she sits back down, the goshawk hooded again. With his eyes averted, he says, “Thank you, ma’am.” He swallows, the sound a little too loud in the quiet room. Then he exhales, looks at her. “Perry?”

It takes Karen a moment to understand what he’s asking. Then she reaches inside her coat, touches Perry’s cheek. He nuzzles against her fingers, affectionate. “Peredur,” she says. “I call him Perry.”

Frank nods. “Astraea,” he says simply.

The name of his dæmon. It’s a small intimacy to know such a thing. And Karen has only studied a few myths back in college, but even she remembers that name.

A goddess of justice.

Sometimes Karen wonders if the universe has their paths laid out for them, long before their dæmons settle.


	4. Chapter 4

She ends up returning to the jail to see him.

Again, and again. Every time, she’s dressed in a different skirt and blouse combination, with low heels or flats. Karen Page is a tall woman; she probably doesn’t want to tower over that lawyer boyfriend of hers. He wouldn’t like it. Frank is many things, most of them bad, but he considers himself a pretty good judge of people. And he suspects Red might be the type of man who’d like his lady to be sweet and easy to rescue.

Or maybe that’s just Frank being an asshole, putting Red in cliched boxes because most of their interactions have left Frank bleeding and irritated.

Maria was also many things, but she’d never been sweet or in need of much rescuing. Someone who didn’t know her well, who saw only a beautiful woman and a hawkmoth dæmon on her shoulder, might have deemed her non-threatening. But they were never on the end of one of her piercing glares or keen wit. Maria was sharp as they came, with a wry sense of humor and a temper that flared as hot as his own. They’d had some spectacular fights, back in the day. It was later, with the wisdom of a little age and hindsight, that he’d realized they’d each been fighting for one another, trying to hold onto their relationship even as they snarled at one another. 

They’d never been perfect, but fuck, he loved her. He misses her.

He suspects he always will.

He wonders what Maria would have thought of Karen—she would probably have liked her. Maria did not suffer fools, and Karen Page is certainly no fool. She probably would have told Frank to go along with whatever Karen wants to do at his trial, told him to cooperate.

So he tries. He really does.

He sits across from Karen Page, chained to that metal table, going over crime scene photos and talking over his memories of that one, terrible day. She takes notes diligently, asks questions no one else has, and all the while, her dæmon tries to coax Astraea into interacting with him.

Perry crawls up on the table, tail swishing as he nudges at the goshawk. Astraea allows it, because with that hood still on her, she’s relying on touch and sound.

It’s uncomfortable; having her sight taken away is a bit like having one of his own senses sliced away. She’s always been his partner—in sniping, in keeping an eye on the kids, in fights, in happy times, and now, she’s blindfolded and chained down.

Well, except for that time she wasn’t.

He tries not to think about how it felt too have Page touch Astraea. Not because it hurt—but rather, because it didn’t.

Only a few people have ever touched his dæmon. His parents, because that’s natural. When Frank and Astraea were very young, they’d seek out comfort and security from his parents and their dæmons alike. Then there were his own kids, because again—normal. When Lisa was a baby, she once accidentally pulled out one of Astraea’s tail feathers, her tiny baby fist clinging on.

And then there was Maria running her fingers along the edge of Astraea’s wing or down her back—and that was entirely different from his kids or his parents. That was—

It just was.

And in those moments that Karen Page’s thumb slid along the soft feathers at Astraea’s beak, he felt it again. That intimacy, that flush of heat and pleasure.

He shouldn’t have felt that. Not for Karen Page, not for anyone. Not right now—not ever. Frank Castle and his dæmon are hunters, killers, punishers alike—and there is still no room in his life for anything, or anyone, else.

* * *

It’s outside of Matt’s apartment that Karen realizes she might have a problem.

She is outside after they debated—“Argued,” Perry corrects—about vigilantes. The city smell is all around: damp cement and car fumes, cooking food and steam. It’s New York, and while she loves it, there’s also a certain loneliness to the city. For all of its people, it’s easy to slip into the shadows and never re-emerge. She wonders if that’s why Frank stayed here, even after his family was killed. If he worked here, rooting out the gangs, because some part of him couldn’t bear to leave.

Could she have left her hometown, if her father hadn’t kicked her out?

She doesn’t know.

“Come on,” Perry says. He’s on her shoulder, nuzzling at her ear. “You want to go home?”

“Not really,” she says. She’s restless and unsteady after that debate—okay, argument—with Matt. They’ve never disagreed like that before. They’ve argued over inconsequential things, over take-out and theories and approaches to clients, but they’ve never argued over something that feels… moral. She’s never seen that expression cross his face before: that flash of stark confusion, then the drawn brows of disappointment. Matt’s disappointed in her because of something she believes, and she’s not sure how she feels about that.

Or maybe she does know how she feels—and she just doesn’t want to admit it.

Matt is the moral core of their little friendship. Foggy is pragmatic and funny, Karen is inquisitive and determined, and Matt is smart and… good. He’s just always been good, and now that they’re disagreeing on a fundamental level, Karen isn’t sure if that makes her wrong or not.

Or maybe it just means their morals aren’t quite as aligned as both of them always thought.

Or maybe it just makes her a bad person.

She honestly doesn’t know.

“Hey,” says Perry. He nips at her neck and she jumps. “We’re just standing on the sidewalk. We need to go somewhere.”

He’s right; they can’t just stand here. So Karen grips her purse a little more tightly and strides down the sidewalk. She doesn’t want to go home; she doesn’t want to be trapped in that tight space. So she just walks, aimless and glad for the movement. She’s armed, because she’s always armed these days, but even so she keeps an eye on her surroundings.

Even so, she’s still a little surprised at where they end up.

A darkened carousel stands before her.

Perry crawls down her arm, her leg, until he’s on the sidewalk. He look up at the carousel, then back at Karen.

Her fingers settle on the metal bars of the surrounding fence. She can just make out the shapes of horses and carriages, and a few mythological creatures. Her mind can easily conjure up the whimsical music that must play when this place is open, how the lights would glitter and everything would spin and spin and spin—

“It’s like visiting a ghost town,” Perry says quietly, voicing her own thoughts aloud. “Like it’s haunted.”

“It is,” says Karen simply. “Maybe not during the daylight hours, but now…”

Perry peers through the bars in the fence. He could slip through, if he wanted. “You want to go in?”

Karen shakes her head. “No.” It’s one thing to stand beside a haunted house; it’s another thing to enter one.

They stand there, in the dark, beside an old carousel for some time. Then she says, “Do you think he was wrong?”

“Which he are we talking about?” asks Perry. He rests a paw on her shoe, looking up at her. She reaches down to pick him up and he allows it, curling against her.

“Frank,” she says. “Do you think he was wrong?”

She doesn’t know what answer would satisfy her. According to popular theories, a dæmon is an extension of a person—a soul made manifest. To ask Perry is to ask herself. But maybe she needs to hear the answer aloud.

Perry looks at the carousel, then down—and she sees it.

Brown smudges against the pavement. They aren’t from the original shooting, she knows. That happened farther out into the park, near the grass and the trees. But she knows how Frank confronted the Irish here, how he let himself be captured for answers. How he bled for them.

“It’s not right,” says Perry. “But I’m not so sure he’s wrong either.”

Karen nods. It isn’t quite an answer, but it satisfies her nonetheless.

* * *

The trial goes about as well as Frank expects.

Which is to say, it’s an absolute clusterfuck.

It’s bad enough hearing Colonel Schoonover up there on the podium, talking about Frank like he’s some goddamn hero. But Frank knows the truth of it, remembers that one terrible night with all kinds of clarity. Schoonover is just as Frank remembers—all gruff voice and air of unbreakable authority. His dæmon, a large dog thick through the shoulders, sits at the witness podium and solemnly gazes at DA Reyes.

Frank is beside Karen; that Franklin Nelson seems to be using her as a human shield between himself and Frank—which amuses him slightly. He’s a decent lawyer, and probably a better human being than most. He’s doing his best by Frank, even if he clearly thinks that Frank deserves prison. Frank can respect that; the lawyer has his code, and he’s sticking to it.

What’s strange, though, is Red’s absence. He shows up late on the first day and doesn’t return for several thereafter. Leaving Karen and Nelson to murmur quietly amongst themselves, clearly chafing at the lack of support.

Maybe they don’t know. It would explain why they seem at a loss for why Red would be skipping out on the trial.

Frank can’t really blame him; he’d skip this trial if it weren’t his own. It’s tedious and irritating, and most of it’s just fabrication. Astraea is chained up beside him, shifting restlessly.

Karen’s dæmon slips out of her lap. He scurries onto the table, then goes to sit beside Astraea. Frank watches out of the corner of his eye as the mongoose reaches out and uses his tiny paws to begin stroking at Astraea’s chest feathers. Astraea cocks her head, then to Frank’s great surprise, she lowers her head and exposes the back of her neck. It’s the one place she cannot groom herself, and it’s her favorite place to be scratched. As if understanding, Perry begins trying to groom the back of her neck and head. Frank feels her pleasure like a phantom sensation; it’s different when it’s a dæmon touching her. He can still sense it, but it’s dulled and more like the memory of a touch.

It’s a distraction, for a little while. Then there’s a psychiatrist at the stand and the lights are dimmed and of course, they’re trying to make this about his brain injury. As if that has anything to do with shit, he thinks, temper burning hot. It’s yet another argument that he’s not responsible, and that’s irritating, because he knows—

And then there’s some kid screaming from the back, yelling about how Frank killed his father—and the worst part is, Frank knows he did. Knows that those gangsters had families, probably had kids that didn’t even know daddy worked for the mob or the cartel. They’d just wake up one day and find themselves without a parent.

Astraea pulls her wings more tightly against herself, turning away from Perry. The mongoose rises to his back legs, trying to see the young man—but then he’s being dragged out of the courtroom.

Afterward, when it’s just him and Karen in a room together, he finally speaks. “I did that,” he says. “I did that.”

It wasn’t PTSD or a bullet through his skull. It was him—all him. And he’s not ducking that responsibility.

“Yeah,” says Karen. Her gaze is averted. Perry is pressed tight to her stomach; he hasn’t moved much since that outcry in the courtroom.

A twinge goes through him, because he knows that hunched little stance. It’s the cower of a dæmon who wants to vanish, to be anywhere else. He’s seen in a few times on the battlefield, with soldiers overwhelmed. And this is a battlefield, for her. She’s fighting for him—and he still doesn’t know why.

* * *

The night they lose the trial, Karen does something she hasn’t in a long time.

She gets drunk.

There’s a cheap bottle of tequila in her purse and a couple of limes because she’s still got some taste—and there’s also a package of potato chips because she always wants something salty when she’s plastered.

It takes about three shots before she feels the heat of the alcohol. It simmers to life in her blood, dulls the memory of the courtroom—and what came after.

Frank Castle is going to prison for life. She’s pretty sure she and Matt are broken up before they ever got a chance to start. Foggy and Matt aren’t speaking, which means who knows what for their law firm. And then there was that woman in Matt’s bed, the one with the dark hair and a brilliant white swan dæmon. Karen knows that was the moment when she mentally decoupled herself from Matt, when she loosened that last bit of hold she’d ever imagined she had on him. He was never hers, not really. She had him in glimpses and in fantasies, but the reality was far different.

Frank, though. Frank—she cannot let go of. Even as she tosses back a fourth shot, she knows that in the morning she’s going to be hungover and miserable, but she’ll be in the office trying to cobble together a repeal.

Maybe, just maybe, she can get him transferred to a place where the criminals won’t declare open season on him.

Perry has been chewing on a lime rind while Karen sits on the couch, her arms dejectedly around a bag of chips.

“You feeling it yet?” she asks dully.

“You know I am,” he says, then goes back to gnawing at the fruit. “Feels weird. Haven’t done this in a while.”

She raises her empty shot glass. “Well, special occasions and all that.”

Perry sighs, slipping off of the coffee table and crawling up into her lap. He sticks one paw into the chip bag and begins nibbling. “And here I thought you came here for snuggles,” she says, pulling him close.

“No, just for chips.” But she knows he’s lying. She buries her face in his bristly fur. Perry allows this for a few moments before squirming, putting one paw on her cheek. “You’re sad we lost.”

“I feel like we failed him,” she confesses. “We were—were the only people who believed him. Even Foggy didn’t, not really. And we didn’t make a damn bit of difference in the end.”

“He wanted to fail,” says Perry. “Looked like he made a choice."

Karen presses her fingers to her hair, squeezing it away from her eyes. She’s dizzy and more than a little drunk. “Maybe if we talked to him and Astraea—"

“We did talk to them,” Perry points out. 

“Again,” says Karen determinedly. “If we’d made it clear—"

“We did,” says Perry. “I don’t think we could’ve made it any clearer."

Karen looks blearily at him. The mongoose has discarded the lime and is standing on his hind legs, looking her in the eye. “You’re not pissed he went to jail, are you?” asks Perry. 

“I am pissed,” says Karen, but the mongoose cuts her off.

“You’re pissed he gave up,” says Perry. “You never figured out how everything fits together. Why the DA lied, what they’re covering up. You’re angry that he gave up the fight, that he just took his sentence."

Karen exhales a little unsteadily. “Does that make me a bad person?"

“To want the truth for them?” asks Perry. “If it does, then we’re both bad.” A quiver goes through his body; she sees it as a ripple along his fur. “Kevin never got that."

She looks away. It’s true; Kevin’s death will forever be marked an accident, when they both know that someone was responsible. Her fingers clench around the empty shot glass. She considers filling it a fourth time. 

“You think he gave up?” asks Karen.

Perry lowers himself back to the table. His tail swishes back and forth. “I think he thought he could fight better elsewhere.”

* * *

The blood is all down his front. 

Under his fingernails. 

In his eyelashes.

He’s breathing it in, the copper tang heavy on his tongue. 

Astraea is caught in a guard’s hands. Her wings are clamped tight, pain radiating out from the places where she’s being pinned. It’s nothing like the last time another person touched her, nothing like—

He can’t quite summon her name, not here. 

Frank is tossed in a solitary cell, left with his ruined jumpsuit and bleeding forearm. Then Fisk comes back, his black mamba at his side. The snake hisses at Astraea; she ignores the viper’s quiet threats. 

It’s a shock when Fisk tells him that Frank will be released; Frank wishes he could just kill Fisk and be done with it, but he can’t. Not right now.

Later.

Someday.

Frank and Astraea are both shoved into a shower to clean off the blood, then given clothes. As he’s changing, Astraea flutters to his side, lands on his shoulder. He runs a hand down her back. “You all right?” he asks. 

She nods. “We got answers."

“The Blacksmith,” he replies. “We’re going to kill him."

“Yes,” says Astraea. “But first—you know where have to go."

He does. Because even in prison, there are televisions broadcasting the breaking news. DA Reyes was murdered—and he can only think of one person who’d do it. 

“Blacksmith’s cleaning house,” says Astraea. “You know who he’ll probably be going after."

“Anyone related to my case,” says Frank. Something like cold fear drops into his stomach. “Karen."

* * *

The first time Frank Castle touches her, it’s when her apartment is shot up.

Frank is above her. His hand is curled through her hair, his other arm pressed against her cheek. Trying to protect her head, even though her heart is somewhere else and all too vulnerable.

Part of her still can’t believe he’s here. He’s in her apartment, unarmed and even more bruised than she remembered. And now she’s clinging to him for dear life. 

Perry was on the bookshelf. Perry was on the bookshelf when the bullets started flying, and she’s terrified for him—and herself. And for Frank, who merely knocked her gun aside before making himself a shield for her. When the bullets stop, when the drywall is falling and the mirror is cracked and some far-off baby is sobbing, Karen sits up and gasps, “Perry.” He isn’t dead; she would be dead if he was. 

She sees him, finally. Well, she sees his head pop through Astraea’s wings, because the goshawk has him pinned to the floor. When Perry sits up, Astraea runs her sharp beak down his fur, as if checking for injuries. Perry shakes himself, looking more stunned than frightened.

“Come on,” says Frank urgently. “We have to go. Stay low, come on, stay low.” Karen grabs Perry and her purse, feels Frank’s hand between her shoulder blades as they run down the hallway and out of her apartment.

They get outside before the cops arrive. She stands in the alleyway beside her apartment building, wondering if she should laugh or cry at the sight of Frank. He broke out of prison—he broke out of prison and came to find her. And now there are distant sirens and bullet holes in her apartment.

Frank grabs her by the arm, halting her in place. “Hey,” he says. Then his gaze is sweeping over her, and he gently tugs her coat.

“What are you doing?” she asks shakily.

“Looking for bullet holes,” he says, and Karen has the wild urge to laugh.

“I think I’d know if I’d been shot,” she says, but he just shakes his head.

“You’d be surprised.”

She leans against the alley wall, her fear finally catching up with her. She’s shaking and cold, struck by the realization it’s the second time in one day that someone’s tried to kill her.

Perry lets out a soft sound, almost a growl. “Someone wants us dead,” Karen says hollowly.

Frank nods. “Yeah. They do.”

Astraea lets out a soft cry; Karen looks around, finds her sitting atop the edge of a fire escape. She is keeping watch, Karen realizes. If anyone comes near, Frank will have warning.

She looks at him, unsure of what to say. Frank is—Frank is a fugitive. He’s a convicted murderer. He’s—he’s here. She can’t quite believe that he’s here.

“It’s not gonna happen,” says Frank. “No one’s killing you.”

And oddly enough, she believes him.

“What do we have to do?” she says.

“After you talk to the cops, after they take you into protective custody, text your location to this number.” He digs a scrap of paper out of his pocket. “I’ll find you.”

She trusts him. She probably shouldn’t, but she does.

“Okay,” she says.


	5. Chapter 5

Of course, it all goes to shit.

Everything always does.

There’s a fight at a diner; Karen loses Frank at the docks; she finds him in the forest; she loses him again—but this time, to his own need for vengeance; she goes home and gets fucking kidnapped; she sees Frank on a rooftop; she finds out Matt is Daredevil because of course he is; Nelson & Murdock break up; Karen finally finds her feet at the Bulletin, and then all kinds of weird shit goes down with dragons and ninjas. Then, Matt ends up dead and Foggy is devastated and Karen is numb and everything feels unreal and wrong, like they’ve veered into some alternate reality and if she could just figure out the way to go back, everything should be as it is.

A few weeks after Matt’s gone, Karen and Perry sit on her bed. They’ve found a new apartment, one not riddled with bullet holes or memories. The floor is still cluttered with boxes and they’re in the midst of unpacking when Karen finds the pictures of her and Foggy and Matt. Her thumb traces across those familiar faces.

She loses people.

It’s what has always defined her—Karen Page loses people. It’s what made her dæmon settle, what changed the course of her life. She can track every shift in her trajectory to a loss.

Which is why she’s so surprised when Frank Castle returns to her.

He waits outside of her apartment, with a thick beard and heavy black coat. Astraea is hidden beneath a blanket, resting on his knee. The goshawk sees Perry and utters a small, almost burbling greeting. Perry chitters back.

Frank asks if they can talk, and she nods.

Once they’re in her apartment, Astraea lands on the back of the couch, and Perry scurries out of Karen’s coat pocket to greet her. Karen might have expected him to be afraid, remembering the last time they met—but rather, Perry sniffs around Astraea’s face, then begins running his tiny paws through the feathers around her neck. Almost like he’s trying to groom her. Astraea makes a soft sound and nudges at him.

Karen has no time to try and decipher the behavior of her overly forward dæmon; she offers Frank a beer and he accepts, and then she’s on her couch and he is asking her for help. Someone knows that he’s alive.

She knew he needed something. It’s the only reason he would show up. She also knew that she was going to help him the moment she invited him up.

Some choices are made before Karen can give them any thought.

“Thanks, Karen,” says Frank, because they’re long past ‘ma’am’ and then he’s setting down his beer and picking up his bag. And there’s a hard lump in Karen’s throat and she doesn’t know what to say, how to make him understand what seeing him means to her.

She ends up hugging him instead. She doesn’t think about it; she just puts her arms around his neck and holds on for dear life.

It’s almost a surprise when Frank’s free arm curls around her and squeezes almost as tight. She can feel the rise and fall of his chest, the press of his nose against her shoulder, and he can probably feel the slight hitch in her own breathing. She pulls back too fast, clearly leaving him off balance.

She lost him—but he came back. And she doesn’t know how to tell him that he’s the first person who’s ever returned to her.

“Just really good to see you,” she says instead.

He barely meets her eyes. “Good to see you.” He holds his arm out to Astraea and she alights upon it, settling on his shoulder. Perry chitters after her, tail swishing. “Be careful.”

Then they’re both gone.

* * *

Frank has always preferred heights to life underground. Perhaps that’s why his dæmon’s a hawk, not a gopher. Besides, he’s a sniper—he’s wasted beneath ground.

David Lieberman doesn’t mind living in a bunker. He moves about the bunker as nimbly as his goat dæmon, fingers flashing across keyboards and screens. He’s the kind of guy that’s too smart for his own good, that would try to do the right thing and end up royally fucked.

The goat watches Astraea with those flat-pupiled eyes and a stare that never wavers. She isn’t afraid of the hawk, and that’s how Frank knows Lieberman’s braver than he looks.

They’re not friends, though.

Allies—but not friends.

“You’ve got mail,” Lieberman says one day, tapping at the screen above his head. It’s the feed of Karen’s window, and sure enough, there’s a pot of white roses. And a tuft of dark fur caught in one of the thorns. 

Astraea is out the door before even Frank manages it.

* * *

Karen cares about Frank and Astraea.

More than is wise—more than she probably should. He’s got a bad habit of disappearing. But she’s never loved well or all that carefully. When Karen Page gives her heart over to something, it’s gone for good. Which is how she finds herself beside a river, at night, telling him that she wants him to live. She wants him to wage his battles, but to find something beyond them.

Astraea is all puffed up, her feathers making her look twice as large as normal. And Perry is beside her, trying to reach for her, but she keeps taking uncertain steps backward. Karen pays them both little attention.

Frank is arguing that she can’t help him with this, that he has to fight this war on his own and she’s arguing back, because he doesn’t have to protect her—

That’s what sets him off. His voice raises, and then when she flinches back, his voice just breaks.

And that’s when Karen gets it.

He’s afraid of losing her, too.

* * *

The fever pulls him down.

It’s an infection. It simmers in his veins, turns his body into a house fire. It’s all he can do to breathe, to drag one heavy breath into his lungs again and again. He’s dimly aware of things moving around him, of being hauled out of the van and onto something cold and hard. The chill is almost painful against his overheated skin.

Then the fever burns hotter.

He dreams.

He doesn’t remember them.

Or at least—he only remembers fragments. Soft fur against his fingers, blonde hair shining in the dark, and then Gunner pleading with him, asking to be buried, to not be left behind—

He wakes with an IV in his arm and bandages across his shoulder. There’s a goat watching him and David Lieberman saying that Frank has to lie back down. Frank isn’t even aware that he’s sat up, that he’s trying to leave his bed.

He’s so goddamn weak that even Lieberman manages to get him down again, and then Frank is on his back and starting up at the ceiling. Astraea is tucked into the crook of his good arm; her beak presses against the soft fresh of his inner elbow. They’ve been sick and injured before; this isn’t entirely new. But Frank still despises the way his body betrays him, leaving him weak.

After he’s drank a little water and dozed a few more hours, Frank wakes again. It’s late; even underground, he can still sense the small hours of the morning.

He exhales hard.

Astraea perches on the edge of the bed; her eyes gleam in the dark. “You feeling better?”

“You know I’m not,” he replies. His voice is still pretty ragged.

“I know,” she says. “But it’s still polite.” She closes her eyes for a brief moment. “We failed him.”

That hurts. Hearing it aloud. But he deserves no less.

“He knew what the risks were,” he says. “Gunner wasn’t an idiot. He knew they’d probably come after him.”

Astraea ruffles her feathers in irritation. “I hate this,” she says. “Feeling hunted. Feeling like prey.”

“I know.” He reaches up with his good arm, stroking her feathers. She allows it, even ducking her head so he can better scratch at her neck. He can feel the flickers of pleasure through their bond. “We’re gonna hunt them down, soon enough.”

“It’s not enough.” Astraea turns her sharp gaze on him. “I’m done with losing people. We’re not losing anyone else."

Part of him wants to say there isn’t anyone left for them to lose, but they both know that’s a lie. It’s why he walked away from Karen, why he’s kept his distance from Lieberman and tried to keep Curt at arm’s length. He’s a walking battlefield, and he’s lost too many to the crossfire. No matter what it takes, he’s going to end this on his terms. And he’s going to keep everyone else out of it. 

“No,” he says quietly. “We’re not losing anyone else.” 

* * *

Lewis Wilson’s dæmon is a wolf.

A lone wolf—the cliche is almost enough to make her laugh bitterly. She can’t, though, not with Wilson’s arm around her and a bomb to her back. Perry is between the wolf’s jaws, long canines pressing into his back. Karen can feel the pinpricks of pain through their bond. All it would take is one good snap and Perry would be gone—and Karen with him.

She tried to reach for Perry back in the interview room, but she was too slow, her eyes still on fire from the smoke. She considered making a grab for one of the fallen guns, but instead she went for Perry—and now she has neither dæmon nor weapon. Wilson’s arm is like a band of steel against her, his breaths shaky in her ear. She hates how close he is, how she can smell his sweat and the detergent used to wash his stolen Anvil uniform.

Frank is a mere few feet away, his hand outstretched. “You don’t need her, kid,” he says.

But Lewis Wilson merely snarls a reply.

Astraea is perched on one of the wall lamps. Her hawkish gaze is on the wolf dæmon. Her talons are curled slightly, claws wickedly sharp. Her wings are slightly parted, ready to fly at a moment’s notice.

Karen holds up her own hand to Frank—not for help, but trying to ward him off. If this bomb blows, maybe there’s a chance he could get away. His gaze is locked on hers. Fear is stark in his dark eyes; this is probably everything he wished to avoid when he set out to hunt Wilson.

“We’ll come for you,” he says.

Karen wishes she could reply, but she can’t. She just lets out a ragged breath, trying to tremble too hard when the elevator doors close behind her.

She’s dragged down into the kitchens, drawn into a conversation she never wanted to have. Karen understands loss, understands anger, but she doesn’t understand the need to make everyone around her suffer. There’s a recklessness to Lewis Wilson’s actions, a drive to hurt everyone nearby. Part of her wants him to get the help he needs, and another part just wants him away—far away. She’s terrified for herself and for Perry, who’s still squirming against the sharp teeth of the wolf dæmon.

She does her best to talk him down. To try and make him think that she does understand him, to try and draw out every moment as long as she can.

_We’ll come for you._

She believes that. She just has to survive long enough for Frank and Astraea to get here.

She isn’t sure how much time passes; too much. She talks to Lewis, tries to calm him down, but he’s too far gone. He snarls at Karen like she’s missed half of a conversation, like she’s slow on the uptake—and maybe she is. She isn’t really listening to him; she’s listening for the familiar footsteps, for any sign that Frank made it alive out of that standoff.

The more time passes, the less certain she becomes. Maybe Frank didn’t make it out of there; maybe Astraea was hurt; maybe—

Then Frank is staggering through the doors, bloody and limping, but alive. Astraea’s wings are flecked with crimson, but she lands easily on a metal table. Her gaze is on the wolf dæmon again, and her wings shift restlessly.

A flash of relief crosses Frank’s face when he sees her.

Lewis grabs her, pulling her tight against his chest—and the bomb—and Frank’s expression hardens. One of his shoulders is stiff, but he raises the other hand in a plea.

Frank tries to talk Wilson down—and he has about as little luck as she did.

And then she hears the one thing he intends for her—“You did the right thing when you told me to pull that white wire,” he says to Lewis, but it’s Karen who truly hears him. She can’t see the wires; she doesn’t dare look down and alert Lewis Wilson to her plan. Frank’s eyes are on the bomber, still talking, still trying to make some kind of connection.

So Karen looks to Astraea instead. Her hand skims along one wire, grasps it.

The hawk shakes her head.

Karen finds another, her breath shuddering out of her when Lewis snarls and suddenly whirls her around, probably in response to whatever Frank just said. Karen is barely listening; all of her focus is on the goshawk dæmon.

She grabs another wire—and again, Astraea gives her that negative head shake.

Finally, Karen finally manages to grab the right one, her heart hammering so hard that she can barely hear Frank’s voice.

“Pull it now, Karen!”

She pulls the wire. There’s an impotent clicking sound as Wilson tries to activate the bomb, then a roar.

She feels pain flash across her vision and it isn’t hers. It’s Perry, shrieking in pain as the wolf begins to bite down. She feels Frank slam into her and then she’s screaming, Perry’s agony flaring through her own nerves. She begins to fall, legs giving out.

She’s dying; she has to be dying. The wolf killed Perry and she’ll follow.

But then a shriek of pain rings out, so loudly that she tries to cover her ears. Frank’s arms are around her, and there’s the sound of fighting. Of snarls and inhuman cries, of wings and paws.

She opens her eyes.

Wilson retreats, running toward a freezer, but then he falls to the floor. He bellows with pain, rubbing at his own eyes. Because Astraea’s talons have dug furrows across the wolf’s eyes. The wolf and hawk are fighting hard—the wolf snapping and snarling, blood across her muzzle. The hawk flies up, then dives, raking fresh wounds across the wolf’s face and shoulders.

Perry is somewhere—hurt, but alive. She can sense him, and she would try to find him, but Frank hasn’t released her.

A screech slices through the air and then Astraea dives and sinks her talons into the wolf’s throat. There’s a terrible whimper as the wolf tries to save itself, but then Astraea tears her beak into the soft flesh. Blood spills across the floor.

The wolf vanishes into ash, and there’s a soft thud as Lewis Wilson hits the floor. For a few heartbeats, all is silent and still. 

“Perry,” says Karen, pulling herself out of Frank’s arms. “Perry!”

Perry scuttles out from beneath a table. His fur is damp with blood and she picks him up, checks him over. He’s got a few puncture wounds, but he’ll live. They both will.

“He all right?” asks Frank. He stands in front of her, Astraea on his shoulder. Her talons are stained crimson. 

“Yeah,” Karen whispers. “He’s okay.” She strokes her thumb across Perry’s cheek. 

It was so close. For both of them—for all of them. Karen rises to her feet and then Frank is there, palm against her cheek as he checks her over. His fingers skim over a cut along her forehead and she winces. “Are you okay?” he says quietly.

“Yeah.” It feels a little like a lie, but one she hopes will be true. She’s not all right—but she will be, in time. Perry is trembling in her hands, and she’s dizzy with adrenaline and pain, but they’re all breathing. It’s more than she could have hoped for.

“We need to go,” Frank says. 

Karen closes her eyes, then forces them open. “We can’t—we can’t just walk out of here. You can’t.”

A line appears between Frank’s brows. “I’ve got a plan.”

She lets out a shaky laugh. “Frank. You can’t shoot your way out of this.”

There’ll be cops outside. Cops meant to rescue her from Wilson, but they’ll go after Frank just as easily.

She can’t lose him. Not again. She steps in front of Frank, hold out Perry. He hangs there, trusting in her hands.

“Take Perry,” she says.

Frank frowns at her.

“I lost my gun,” she says. “You can’t—you have to take me hostage. We don’t have a weapon. Take Perry. If you have my dæmon, it’ll look more convincing that I’m a hostage.”

His eyes widen. He understands—he’s always understood her well. “I can’t.” 

“You can,” she says.

Perry is the one to make the decision; he pulls himself free of Karen’s grasp and scurries onto Frank’s arm. He looks up at Frank, tilting his head in a question.

The last color drains from Frank’s face. He swallows audibly, then says, “Okay.”

Karen feels the moment Frank’s hands close around her dæmon. It’s strange—like he’s taken hold of her heart. All it would take is one squeeze and twist and she would be dead.

She’s not scared, though. She trusts him with this. 

Frank’s grip is firm but very careful. “You stay behind me, okay?” he says. “Astraea.”

Karen doesn’t understand the order, not until there’s a flash of wings and a weight against Karen’s left shoulder.

The goshawk has perched upon her. Karen winces against the sharp press of razor talons, but Astraea is careful not to break the skin.

This is how they go out to the elevator: with Frank holding Karen’s dæmon, his fingers ready at the mongoose’s throat. The cops lower their guns, mostly because Mahoney is barking at them. And Frank Castle’s dæmon at Karen’s shoulder, wingtips brushing her cheek.

Everything moves in a blur of shouting and dizzying adrenaline.

When the elevator doors close behind them, Karen slumps against the wall in relief. Frank releases Perry at once, and the mongoose scurries down his leg to the floor and begins licking the blood from his fur. Astraea, however, remains on Karen’s shoulder.

It’s a strange weight, to carry another’s dæmon.

Karen looks at Frank—at his wounds and his messed up shoulder and the blood running down his face. For her. He did this, threw himself into a nightmare for her. Tears are hot against her eyelids and she doesn’t know how to say that she isn’t worth this.

Frank looks at her, and his own eyes are red and a little too damp. Astraea lowers her head, and nudges against Karen’s cheek.

And then Astraea does something she’s never done in Karen’s presence before. She _speaks_.

“We didn’t protect our family the last time,” Astraea says. Her voice is soft, melodic. “We couldn’t let it happen again.”

Oh.

She looks at Frank with new understanding, and her stomach feels so light—like she’s falling, even as she’s standing still. He looks terrified. Fresh blood cascades down his face, across one ear.

She’s the one who reaches for him. She puts her hand on his uninjured arm, squeezes. He leans in, and for a moment she thinks their mouths might meet. But instead, his brow bumps against hers. And she’s surrounded by him—his dæmon so close, his skin against hers, the very warmth of him.

But it can’t last forever. Her mouth is sharp with the taste of blood and her fear for him still hot in her chest. She gives him the softest little push.

“Go,” she tells him. “Both of you. Get out of here.”

He looks shaken, reluctant. So she gives him a small nod. “I’ll be okay. Just—go.”

He seems to understand. “Take care.”

She’s never been so glad his dæmon can fly. Astraea cuts through the air, flying up through the elevator shaft. Frank follows with more difficulty, but she knows he’ll make it.

He has to.

As for her part, Karen sits down on the elevator floor. The cops will get to her, eventually. They’ll find a way to bring the elevator up or down, pry open the doors. But for now, as long as they think she’s a hostage stuck in between floors, they won’t search the roof.

The cops won’t look to the skies.

Perry curls up against her knees. His fur has matted blood in it, and he’s trembling, but nuzzles at Karen’s thumb. “They’re both survivors,” he says. “They’ll be okay.”

She wishes she could be so sure. She curls up around him and finally lets herself sob.

* * *

When the cops finally wrangle the elevator down to a floor and pry open the doors, they find Karen Page sitting in a corner, cradling her injured dæmon. The EMTs push past, Mahoney snapping at his men to give them room. Karen finds herself taken to a quiet hallway, where she’s given a series of neurological tests and then a kindly young man with a ferret for a dæmon begins cleaning the blood from her forehead. “You’re lucky,” he says, as he places a bandage across the cut. “This could’ve needed stitches, but I think you’ll manage like this.”

There’s an interview with Mahoney and another interview with Madani. Her dæmon, a wolverine, eyes Perry suspiciously. Perry ignores him, curled around Karen’s shoulders. He keeps trying to groom her hair, and she lets him. It’s a comforting little thing, in the midst of all of his destruction.

Madani does her best to convince Karen that she can protect Frank. In the end, Karen is left with Madani’s business card, a bandage across her forehead, and a ride back home in a police car. She forgoes the ER visit that an EMT recommends, because that’s one trip Karen doesn’t need. Instead, she retreats to the safety of familiar walls and smells, to her own bathroom with its first aid kit. She takes a bath, helps scrub the blood out of Perry’s fur and make sure he’s bandaged, too. Then she pulls on clean clothes and falls into bed.

She doesn’t sleep. She wants to, but she can’t. She wonders what Frank is doing—if he’s all right. If he’s back on his own mission, hunting his family’s killers.

And then she remembers what Astraea said, and Karen’s heartbeat picks up all over again.

Karen hasn’t been anyone’s family in a very long time.

“I think I’m in love with him,” she whispers beneath the covers.

Perry gives her this look, like she’s being incredibly dense. “You just figured that out.”

“Yes,” she says. “When did you?”

“When he showed up here,” says Perry. “And you invited him up.” He gives her a stern look. “You hugged him, remember?”

“I was glad to see him.”

“Because…?” Perry says.

She exhales. “Because I’m in love with him.” She reaches out, strokes Perry’s fur. She’s careful to avoid his still-healing cuts. “What do you think?”

“I think,” says Perry, “it’s about time.”


	6. Chapter 6

It ends where it begins—at the carousel.

With Bill.

Frank and Astraea do what they were born to: they hunt. Bill is a deadly son of a bitch, but Frank’s got more to lose. Those two fucking kids—and then Madani bleeding out. Frank is beyond fear, beyond fury, his emotions burning so hot that he can barely feel them. Astraea’s hunting cry rings out even above the melody of the carousel and the gunfire.

And there’s Bill at the heart of it. Snarling and furious, his chameleon dæmon clinging to his shoulder. “The Punisher? What a crock of shit. You always did care too goddamn much.”

Frank grits his teeth, swallows every retort because he can’t afford to lose again. He can’t.

The fight is a whirlwind of blows and gunfire, the cheerful song of the carousel and the taste of powder on the air. It ends with Billy’s face full of glass and Astraea with her talons sunk into the chameleon’s side.

Bill isn’t dead—but maybe that’s for the best.

When it’s over, Frank isn’t sure what to feel. It’s done; it’s over. He just knows he is sitting on the edge of that carousel, Madani’s blood all across his fingers as he tries to keep her alive. Those two kids approach, both bloodied and scared.

And that’s what does it, in the end. Those two damned kids. Their dæmons—a sparrow and a large fluffy cat—try to nudge themselves under Astraea. Like chicks trying to hide beneath a mother hen. Astraea allows it, extending both wings—even if she isn’t large enough to cover both dæmons. As for the kids themselves, they sit near Frank. Like he’s also a source of safety, of protection.

Those two kids.

Two kids that lived.

Frank knows it isn’t enough—nothing he ever does will be enough to make up for past failures.

But maybe this means that something is supposed to come after.

* * *

Two weeks pass with no word. Karen goes about her normal life like a person trying to find her footing on unstable land. After the attack at the hotel, after her realization, part of her thinks that everything should be different. But it’s not—she still goes to work and writes, still comes home and forgets to vacuum her apartment until Perry comes crawling out from under the couch covered in dust bunnies.

Then, her phone rings. It’s an unknown number, which isn’t entirely strange in her line of work. When she answers, there’s a beat of silence.

“Hey,” comes that familiar voice. The hairs on Karen’s arms prickle and she feels a flush of heat and adrenaline. Perry looks up sharply; he’s been sitting on her desk, chewing absentmindedly on the end of a pencil.

“Hey,” she replies softly, because she doesn’t know what else to say. She takes a breath, then says, “You okay?”

A pause, then “Yeah. Yeah, I’ll be fine.”

Which means Frank isn’t fine right now. She grips her cell phone a little harder. She wants to say his name, but she knows better. “Can—can I see you?”

Another pause. She imagines those moments of silence on his end, and she feels vaguely ashamed for even asking. Maybe—maybe she has this all wrong.

Perry comes closer, looking up at her with sharp eyes.

“Yeah,” Frank says softly. “Yeah.” He names a place and a time. She agrees, and hangs up.

The rest of the work day drags, and she leaves so quickly she’s half-surprised there isn’t a cloud of dust behind her. Perry rides along in her purse—she had to buy a new one; the old one smelled like gunpowder and metal.

They meet where they first met—at a bench overlooking the river.

Frank stands there. He’s bruised but his face carries no trace of pain. His clothes are new, a little ill-fitted. Like he borrowed or bought them secondhand. Astraea is on his shoulder. Tension unwinds within Karen’s chest; she’s glad to see them alive and relatively well.

Karen considers reaching for him, but she suspects there are more bruises beneath his coat.

“Hey,” he says, a half-smile on his face. It’s a rueful smile, like he knows how rough he looks. “Nice purse.”

She returns his smile with a gentle one of her own. “It’s big enough for my new gun. And two phones. And some make-up.”

“And a wallet, I hope,” he says.

She shrugs. “All a lady really needs in life—a good gun and make-up.”

He lets out a hoarse little laugh. “You doing all right? After the hotel?” The way he says it, she knows he isn’t just talking about any injuries.

Perry chooses that moment to pop out of her purse. He chitters a greeting at Astraea, then scurries up Karen’s arm, across her shoulder, then down the other arm. He jumps onto the railing and skitters closer. The wind coming off the river ruffles his brown fur and he hunches in on himself; he’s never been all that good with cold.

“All healed up,” Frank says, eyeing Perry. “You looked a little like a mauled chew toy last time, buddy.”

“I’d have liked to chew on him,” said Perry, tail lashing at the memory.

Astraea hops down Frank’s arm, onto the rail. She’s less coordinated on her feet than in the air. She bobs and weaves a little as she walks, then she stands next to Perry. She does that bird thing of eyeing him from every angle, as if she’s trying to x-ray the mongoose.

Karen turns her attention to Frank. “Are you still on the run?”

“Sorta,” he said. “But the feds are giving me a pass and a pay-off in exchange for not talking to a reporter.” His dark eyes are warm with amusement.

“You want me to write about it?” she says. “I would.”

He shakes his head. “Naw. Let them have their dirty little secrets. Everyone who had a hand in it is dead, and they’d deny it all anyways. Besides, they’d probably try to ruin your career out of sheer spite. Not about to do that.”

“So what now?” she asks. She’s half-afraid of his answer, which is why she has to ask. If he’s going to disappear, she needs to know. To brace herself against that loss. 

Several emotions cross his face at once; Astraea looks sharply at Karen. 

“I just need—I’ve got to figure some shit out,” he says. “Gonna need some time.”

She nods. “Of course, Frank.”

He hesitates, then kisses her cheek. It’s soft and so brief she can barely feel it. Then he’s pulling away, eyes averted. He begins to walk past her, so she almost doesn’t notice what comes next.

Astraea nibbles at Karen’s thumbnail. It’s so unexpected that she flinches a little; the goshawk’s beak is sharp, but she’s careful not to puncture skin. Karen holds very still and Astraea bumps her head against Karen’s hand, then spreads her wings and takes to the air.

Startled into stillness, Karen stands there. She finds herself touching her thumb to her palm.

* * *

He doesn’t vanish.

Part of him wants to—which is why he knows he shouldn’t. His instincts are all screwed up, meant for survival and not really living.

He ends up moving into a trailer temporarily; it’s Curtis’s, a place that he’s allowed other vets to stay in the past. It’s got a bed and a tiny kitchen, and Frank crashes there for a few weeks like he decides what he wants, and lets the fervor still surrounding the Punisher die away. 

Freedom. It’s a strange concept; he doesn’t know what to do with it. He’s spent so long caught up in his mission that not having it feels like being some unanchored ship. He’s been set adrift, left at the mercy of the waves. If Curt were here, he’d say something about ‘charting his own course,’ but then again, Curtis has always loved to stretch a metaphor. 

“What now?” he asks, voicing that same question that Karen did. 

Astraea is in the kitchen, eating crumbs from the toast he made. It isn’t meat, which she’d prefer, but she does enjoy the berry jam. 

“What do you want?” she asks. 

He shrugs. “Dunno. It’s why I’m asking you.” 

She ruffles her feathers. “You think I’m going to have a different answer than you?"

“Maybe I just want to talk it out,” he says reasonably. 

She sighs, then leaves the rest of the crumbs. “All right. Talk."

He says, "We could go somewhere."

“Curtis wants us at those meetings once a week for the foreseeable future.” Astraea walks across the table, her talons clicking against the plastic. “You promised."

“We could...” He shakes his head. “I’m out of ideas."

“Maybe a better question,” says Astraea, “is to ask what do you want?"

Frank’s stomach gives an unnerving little squirm. It’s a question he hasn’t asked himself in a long time, because the answer was always the same: to avenge his family. But now... now to ask himself that question would be to give voice to other desires. And he isn’t entirely comfortable with those. So he remains quiet. 

“You remember that Sherlock Holmes anthology we read?” asks Astraea. 

It’s such a non-sequitur that Frank blinks a few times before answering. “Yeah.” 

“Remember that one where Sherlock set that fire,” says Astraea, “because he needed to know where someone was hiding something, and the best way to find it was to threaten what that person cared about most?"

Frank feels his face set in even lines. “Yeah."

Astraea puffs up for a moment, her feathers making her look twice her normal size. “All right. So imagine right now the world’s on fire. What do you grab?” 

He opens his mouth to reply, then he goes quiet. Because the answer is damning and terrifying and too much to say aloud. 

But Astraea has always been braver than he is. “Karen,” she says. “You’d find Karen. And I mean, we’d probably look for Curt and go take care of the Lieberman’s, so we should stay in touch with them, too."

His chest is a little too tight for comfort; he has to force himself to take a full breath. “I don’t... I mean, I’m not sure she’s—"

“She wants you,” says Astraea. “Perry told me as much."

Frank all but chokes on his answer. “You shouldn’t just be asking him shit like that. Karen would be pissed."

“I told him,” continues Astraea, “that you’d probably be stubborn about it."

“Don’t go telling him shit like that about me,” says Frank, but now he’s smiling despite himself. “You’re a fucking terror. Both of you. Think it’s your business getting involved in this."

“It is,” says Astraea. “I want us to be happy again. She makes you laugh.” 

He thinks about her—the pale winter sunlight in her hair, her thick black coat belted around her waist and the look on her face when he said he needed some time. 

“If I call her, will you stop gossiping with Perry?” he says. 

Astraea ruffles her wings. “I will make no such promises."

* * *

They meet up at a diner—a different one this time. He orders eggs and toast; she ends up getting waffles, then giving Astraea a few pieces when the goshawk shamelessly waddles across the table.

Karen tells him about work; he tells her the details of the last few weeks. They keep things light, easy, couched in metaphor and half-truths so that anyone listening won’t understand. It’s nice—different than hanging out with Curt or Lieberman. Karen has always understood him, gotten him when few others did. 

They keep meeting up after that. 

They’re careful never to meet up at the same place twice. Frank knows he’s still technically a wanted man, and until his beard grows out and time passes, it’s better to be cautious. The last thing he wants is for Karen to be implicated somehow. So they only meet up perhaps every other week—for coffee near a park, for breakfast, for a walk around a museum. It’s always early morning stuff, because somehow lingering into the late hours still feels too intimate.

After two months, he feels a little steadier. He’s got weekly meetings with Curtis’s group, an apartment that’s stark but clean, and a job working as one of those phone app food delivery services. It’s more for something to do than because he needs the money, but sitting around in an empty apartment is his idea of hell. Karen laughs when he tells her, asking if he’s going to show up one day at her doorstep with take-out, and he says, “Only if you asked me to.”

It just slips out.

Her smile stays fixed in place, like she can’t tell if he’s joking or not. “So if I was craving take-out on Friday…?”

“I’d ask what you wanted,” he says, his mouth on autopilot. 

She seems to consider. “Dumplings,” she said. “I’ve been wanting dumplings.”

“What kind?”

“Surprise me.”

* * *

This was a terrible idea.

Karen is fully aware that she’s being unreasonable. She has cleaned her apartment twice and she isn’t even sure if this is a date, if Frank really wants it to be a date, if—

“You’re making me dizzy,” Perry complains as she walks by for the sixth time with the broom.

“Then don’t watch me clean.” Karen crams the broom under the couch and begins sweeping.

“What are you so nervous about anyways?” asks Perry.

“I’m not nervous,” she says. She sounds nervous, much to her own irritation. She leans the broom against the couch. 

“Well, you shouldn’t be. He’s bringing us food,” says Perry.

Karen puts her hands to her face; she’s sweating, and that’s just great. “I know.”

Perry sits with his tail curled serenely around his paws. “Not to get all dæmon psychology on you, because we both know it’s mostly bullshit—”

“That’s because half of it is all, ‘they have a cat dæmon because they’re a Leo,’” says Karen.

“Exactly,” says Perry. “Most of it is bull. But you know—some of it isn’t. You and I—were mostly alike.”

“If I needed to shave my legs you could’ve just told me.”

“Oh, har, har,” says Perry, the sarcasm positively dripping off every syllable. “We’re stubborn. We’re hunters. We’re adorable.”

“I’m not—”

“You are according to most of the people you’ve dated,” he says. “And again, this may be reading too much into things, but Frank and Astraea are bringing us food. Here.”

“It’s typically what you do on a date,” says Karen.

Perry flicks his tail irritably. “No, what you do is go to a bar and talk with people. Dating is going somewhere on neutral ground. This—this is our den. Our nest, if you want to get all hawk-like about it. It’s home territory. And they’re coming here with food. That’s not dating behavior.”

“So you’re saying this isn’t a date,” says Karen.

“I’m saying,” says Perry, “is that we’ve blown right past dating and moved into something else.” He gives her a stern look. “You did remember to take the pill this morning, right?”

She flushes. “For the love of—I don’t even know if sex is on the table.”

“Hawks mate for life,” says Perry. “You better decide now because I’m pretty sure once he’s here, he is here. And there’ll be no getting the feathers out from between the couch cushions ever again.”

She glares at him. “I thought you liked Astraea.”

“I do,” he says. “She’s—she’s good. I like seeing her happy.” He tilts his head. “I just want to make sure you’re happy, too.”

The truth is, Frank has never made her happy. He’s terrified her with his disregard for his own life; he’s infuriated her a couple of times with his stubbornness and refusal to accept help; she cried when he thought he was dead at the docks and she cried again when he kissed her cheek beside a dark river and walked away. But—but he also made her feel safe when she talked about her childhood; he wasn’t surprised by the darker edges of her life; he’s made her laugh with his wry humor; he threw himself in the line of fire to protect her; he makes her feel like—like maybe she isn’t something wholly unredeemable. Like she matters.

“I think we could be,” she says. “Happy. If people would just stop shooting at us or trying to blow us up or without any government conspiracies.”

Perry nods. “Well. I give you both about five minutes of happiness. Then, knowing our luck, some assassin’s going to bust through that window.”

“Oh, you.” She picks him up, ignoring the way he squirms, and kisses him on the head. She can sense he’s pleased, even as he struggles. She kisses his head again, and he wriggles free, scurrying up her shoulder and perching there.

“Okay, okay.” Perry sounds aggrieved. “I get it. And I’m happy, too.” A pause. “You did remember to take the pill, right? Because I am not ready for a baby dæmon shape-shifting all over the apartment.”

She tosses him into the couch cushions.

* * *

Frank shows up with a take-out bag heavy in one hand and a bouquet of roses in the other.

“Well,” she says, grinning as she leans against the doorframe. “This service is better than I usually get.”

Frank looks good—as though he took the time to comb his hair and condition his neat beard. He wears a henley shirt and jeans—and she’s a little grateful that he didn’t dress up more. It would have put too much pressure on this, on her. She’s wearing a sweater and jeans, after debating every single dress and skirt she owns.

“I should hope your delivery people aren’t bringing you flowers,” says Frank. “It’d mean my competition is getting more creative for tips.”

“And here I don’t even have any cash on me.” She steps aside to let him in. Astraea is on his shoulder; she looks about the apartment and then flies to the windowsill, her wings cutting through the air. Perry is sitting there, and he chirps a greeting. The two dæmons sniff at one another and Astraea begins nudging at him, as if to get him away from the windows, but then Frank walks past Karen and she turns her attention back to him. Frank steps into the apartment like the floor might collapse at any moment; his steps are quick and there’s a bit of unease in the set of his shoulders.

This is one thing that makes Karen smile. Frank Castle and his dæmon won’t even blink at facing down armed attackers or certain death, but give them a night in with take-out and both of them seem to regard the task like it’s truly dangerous.

Maybe it is.

Karen stopped caring about that a long time ago.

She finds a dusty vase in the cupboard above her fridge and the roses go on her coffee table like they belong there. Frank is setting out cardboard containers while Karen rummages around in her fridge for two beers.

“I didn’t know what kind of dumplings you wanted, so I got all of them,” Frank says.

She picks up one of the containers, reveling in the warmth emanating through the cardboard. It smells mouth-watering. “Good choice.”

Frank picks up one of the beers and takes a few grateful swigs. “How’s—how’s work?”

His obvious apprehension only makes her bolder. She steps into his space, and he lets her. Dark eyes flicker over her like he _wants_ and he’s scared to want.

“You really want to talk about the Bulletin?” she asks.

His throat bobs in a swallow. But his gaze is steady, his voice even—if a little hoarse. “Yes. I mean—later.”

“Good answer.” She can feel the warmth of his body through the henley shirt; she’s not touching him, but it’s a near thing.

They’ve always been a near thing.

It’s time to be a thing, she thinks, and has to bite back a smile. It’s a good thing her own journalistic tendencies never veered into poetry; she’d be terrible at it.

“I like the shirt,” she says.

She feels his attention as his gaze roams across her. “Thanks. I like your…” He trails off, and then shakes his head in a rueful way. “Shit. I was never smooth.”

“You’re doing fine,” she says, smiling. “You brought dumplings. And roses. Puts you miles ahead of everyone else.”

He snorts. “Your standards leave something to be desired.”

“I have very high standards,” she says airily. “Only people I trust get to bring me food. And see me in jeans.”

“That so?”

They are touching now—his hips brush hers, and then her hands are on his waist. Her breath hitches; her every nerve feels raw and aching, and she has to resist the urge to do something reckless. She doesn’t want to rush him into anything, to scare him off.

“You’re gorgeous, you know that?” he says quietly. And with such sincerity that she flushes hotly. If it were coming from anyone else, it’d be a line. But with him, she knows he means every word.

His hands are on her. Gently cupping her jaw, his fingertips pressed lightly in her hair. She leans into his palm, feels his thumb stroke her cheek. Then, slowly, he lowers his mouth to hers.

She feels utterly caught up in him, buoyant with happiness. She is smiling into the kiss, which is probably the least sexy thing she could do, then she outright laughs, having to pull away for a moment. “What is it?” Frank asks. “Shit, I’m not that out of practice, am I?”

“No,” she says. “I just—I’m happy.”

His expression softens. As if he understands.

She kisses him again, and it’s even better. Time passes—she isn’t sure how much; it becomes meaningless until Frank retreats enough to murmur, “Perry is stealing the dumplings.”

“He can have them,” Karen says, and goes back to kissing him.


	7. Chapter 7

Karen has had her fair share of kisses.

There were the fumbling ones in high school, ones that tasted like wine coolers and accompanied by the clink of a bottle spinning on a hardwood floor. Then there was Todd and his confident certainty, and while he was many things, he was a pretty decent kisser. There were first dates, a few second dates, that kiss in the rain with Matt. There are other kisses, too. Ones she doesn’t let herself think of that often. Her mother kissing her hair after braiding it. Kevin kissing her cheek when he was only five and she finally taught him how to tie his shoelaces.

This kiss with Frank is so many things at once.

His mouth is warm and tender against hers, seeking but never demanding. She returns the kiss with a yearning she could never have conveyed in words. She wants him—all of that iron and fire, that gentleness and care—with a kind of desperate yearning, an ache that’s been pounding in her blood for longer than she’s willing to admit.

And then Frank is kissing her harder, and his belt buckle is pressed against her lower stomach and her fingers are in his short hair, and his tongue is in her mouth. The kiss goes from sweet to needy in the span of a few moments, and Karen doesn’t mind in the least. She wants everything he’s willing to share.

Her hands fall on his belt, and he groans softly into the kiss. She isn’t sure how she manages to pull it free, but she does. Frank’s hands are on her hips, skimming up her back. Her blouse is untucked, coming free of her skirt. His hands are warm and big against her back, and she’s impressed with how fast he manages to unclip her bra. It loosens beneath her shirt, straps sliding down her shoulders. She pulls the blouse free, the bra hitting the floor. Frank looks at her like he doesn’t ever want to look away. One palm covers her breast and she arches into the touch, a jolt of pleasure making itself known when his thumb rolls across her nipple.

Her skirt falls to the floor, and then she’s standing there in panties and pumps, while he’s still mostly dressed. He seems to realize that at the same moment she does; he unbuttons his coat, lets his shirt fall to the floor. His jeans, and then his boxer-briefs are gone, too, and he’s utterly bare before her. Gorgeous, she wants to say, but that would require her to stop kissing him.

They end up on the floor, Karen’s bare back against an old rug. His hands skim across the band of her panties and she clutches at him harder. “Bed?” Frank murmurs against her mouth.

“That can be round two,” she replies, and kisses him again.

* * *

It’s hours later.

Karen can feel the soft top sheet against her bare breasts and stomach. Frank carried her to the bed; after her second orgasm, she was a little unsteady on her feet. Now she’s warm and happy in a way that’s unfamiliar and a little frightening. Frank is beside her, one arm beneath her neck and the other tracing shapes against her collarbone, her shoulder, her throat. Her leg is twined around his, and her head is tucked against his shoulder.

“When did you know?” she asks.

“Know… what?”

“That you wanted this,” she says.

He lets out a hoarse laugh.

“I didn’t want to want you,” he says.

She snorts.

He backtracks at once. “Shit, that came out wrong. I mean… it’s fucking terrifying, doing this. But I figure—I figure you’re gonna be running headlong into danger whether or not I’m here. Might as well be here.”

She lets out a breath of laughter. “Nice save.”

“As for when it happened… back in jail,” he admits. “When—when you put that hood back on Astraea. That’s when I first felt it.”

Across the room, Astraea and Perry are dozing on Frank’s discarded sweatshirt. They look comfortable, with Astraea’s head resting lightly on Perry’s back. Karen blinks in surprise. “What?”

“Yeah,” he says. “When you touched her, it was like—like someone putting paddles to my chest and jolting me back to life. Put it down to me being alone for so long. Tried to ignore it, and succeeded for the most part. But after I came back… that day in your apartment. Realized I was in deeper than I’d ever meant to be. And when that Wilson kid came after you…” She feels his arm tighten around her. “That’s when I knew. Couldn’t deny it anymore. Didn’t want to.”

She shakes her head a little. “I can’t believe that’s what sparked it. I felt so guilty,” she confesses.

He looks at her. “Guilty? ‘Bout what?”

“About having to touch Astraea. Back in jail.”

“Really?” says Frank.

She frowns at him. “It’s a violation.”

“It is, if it’s unwanted.” Frank studies her, then glances at Perry. “When—when I held him at the hotel. You felt violated?”

“No,” says Karen, startled. “I mean, I trust you with him. But it was still terrifying.”

“Terrifying,” repeats Frank. “‘Course it was. There were about twenty guys with guns on us. When it’s—when it’s someone you care about, it’s different.”

She frowns. “I’ve only ever—well, there was only ever one time. And…”

“When?” He rolls over a little, propping himself up on one elbow. He reaches out with his other hand, strokes Karen’s arm.

She draws in a breath. “Wesley. When he kidnapped me. He—he touched Perry.”

“Yeah?” Frank’s voice goes low with anger. She told him about Wesley during one of their breakfasts; to her relief, it hadn’t bothered him in the least.

She says, “Well, he had Perry. Wesley had grabbed him, pinned him to the table. And I could—I could feel it. Like he’d reached inside of me, and it was wrong.”

Frank makes a low, furious sound deep in his throat. “Kind of glad you shot him.” He gives a small shake of his head. “Can I…? I mean, if you don’t mind.” He glances at the floor. “Perry?”

When Frank calls out to him, Perry sits up. 

“Mind coming here?” asks Frank.

Perry glances between Karen and Frank, then scurries out of the sweatshirt and across the room, climbing the blankets and not the bed. He perches near Karen’s feet, settling on his hind legs. “What?” Perry says.

“May I?” asks Frank, and holds out his hand.

Perry’s tail twitches uneasily and he looks at Karen. She shrugs, leaving it up to him.

Perry hesitates, then he creeps closer. He settles beside Frank’s hand, sniffing his fingers, then lowers himself to the bed—proffering his exposed back. “S’okay,” Frank says quietly. He runs his fingers lightly down Perry’s back.

She gasps. It’s like he’s stroking an exposed nerve. She doesn’t know how to describe it; it’s like the raw pleasure of someone lightly raking their fingernails against her scalp and the tingle of blood rushing into her legs after she’s been crossing them too long.

Perry arches against Frank’s palm, closing his eyes contentedly while Frank’s thumb rubs between his ears. He could crush her dæmon, kill her easily, but she trusts him. He pets Perry again and again, slow and easy. She isn’t sure how much time passes—it could be thirty seconds or five minutes.

Finally, Frank lifts his hand away. “You okay?”

“That was…” She searches for words and comes up short. Her breathing is unsteady. “Was that what it was like? When I touched Astraea in jail?”

“Yeah,” he says.

She remembers the softness of Astraea’s feathers. “How did you know… I mean. You didn’t know me, back then. Why’d you trust me with her?”

He laughs. “Didn’t know you? By the end of that first day in the hospital, I knew everything I needed to.” He curls his hand around the back of her neck, thumb moving softly behind her ear. “I knew you were brave, that the truth mattered more to you than safety. I knew that you were the first person to give a damn about what happened to me and my family. I knew that you cared when no one else did. I knew Astraea’d be safe with you.”

Astraea clicks her beak in agreement, then goes back to grooming her feathers. Perry looks drunk on the all of the contact; he walks sleepily back to Astraea and flops into the sweatshirt. She nuzzles at him, like she’s trying to bring an unruly chick back into the nest.

Karen curls up beside Frank, her eyes slipping shut. “You are, you know.”

She feels his lips against her forehead. “What, sweetheart?”

“Safe here,” she murmurs.

* * *

When Karen is asleep, Frank slips out of bed.

He needs to sort out his thoughts and he’s always operated best while in flight. Perry wakes, watches them, and Frank says, “Unlock the door for us when we get back?”

Perry nods, then curls up beside Karen’s ankle.

Frank goes on a walk with Astraea; they keep near the river, and she catches the air gusts blowing off the water. There’s a freeing feeling to it—to the arch of her wings, the ease of weightlessness without the work of flight. He leans against the railing, cool breeze against his face, and he thinks about how he thought his life would go, compared to how it’s actually gone. Everything’s screwed up—and once upon a time, he thought of his life like a train off its rails. That it would end with one final crash, a fiery explosion. But here they both are—he and his dæmon—living. And while it’s not perfect, it’s still more than he ever thought he’d get again. He remembers the heat of Karen’s mouth against his and hangs his head a little, glad for the chill of the night. Astraea flies down and alights on the railing. “You want to go home?” he asks.

Astraea ruffles her wings. “Nothing out worth hunting,” she says, with an eye toward the river. “Might as well.”

He knows she isn’t talking about fish or rodents—and that makes him huff out a fond breath. She hops onto his shoulder and they return to Karen’s apartment.

* * *

If Karen had any expectations of what a relationship with Frank Castle might look like, they’d all have gone out the window by the second date.

He surprises her.

With a picnic of all things.

There’s a backpack full of take-out boxes. His job means he knows where all the best places are, and when they’re sitting in a state park outside of the city, the spring breeze warm against their skin, it’s kind of perfect. The food isn’t the sandwiches and apple slices she would’ve expected on a picnic. There’s gnocchi flavored with sage butter and cheese, a fresh loaf of sourdough, roasted vegetables, and for dessert, delicate slices of some flourless chocolate torte. Perry, the little glutton that he is, goes right for the sourdough and tears off a hunk. He gobbles down a bite and then begins scattering crumbs across the grass for Astraea. “I’m not a pigeon,” she says.

“Everyone likes bread,” Perry replies. The goshawk gives him an exasperated look, but she does eat the crumbs.

Frank snorts, setting one of the boxes of gnocchi in Karen’s lap. “And here I worried they’d be picky eaters.”

“Going to sit-down restaurants not your thing?” Karen asks, picking up a plastic fork. “Not that I’m complaining—that is better than anything I’ve eaten in months.”

He shrugs, looking pleased with himself. “Still a little worried about sitting in one place for too long. Particularly where there could be security cameras. Was planning on keeping a low profile for at least a year or so, if I want to stay in the city.”

“And you do,” she says. It’s a question without being phrased as such.

“Yeah.” He takes a bite. “It’s got the best food trucks.”

She snorts. “I love your priorities.”

“It’s got other things, too.” His fingers bump against hers.

* * *

They go on like that for nearly three months.

It’s a good few months. Karen is happy, genuinely happy—the kind that has her sleeping well and smiling at work, and she knows the interns at the Bulletin have a pool going on, trying to figure out if she’s either getting laid or investigating something juicy.

She should have known it was too good to last.

Because Fisk gets released.

She gets the news at work, and after that—she’s barely conscious of anything else. The world is a blur of noiseless confusion and fear; all she can feel is her heart unsteady in her chest and all she can taste her own bitter terror. There’s talk of some FBI plea bargain, of a hotel, but she’s not paying attention to the details.

Fisk is out—and this time, Matt isn’t here.

She misses him; she’s never stopped missing him. She knows the grief will fade in time, but Fisk’s release brings it all back: her first few months in the city, her arrest, her first introduction to Nelson & Murdock, and all of the chaos that came afterward. Foggy texts her, but she can’t really bring herself to read it yet. It’ll probably just be some jumble of reassurance and his own panic.

Once she’s at her own place, Karen locks the door behind her and pours a shot of whisky. It burns going down, but the heat helps drive away some of her numb terror. Fisk is out—and she doesn’t know what she’s going to do. Perry goes to the living room windows, looking outside like some kind of sentry. She considers calling him back, but then he scurries to the front door. “Perry,” she begins to say, but then a knock makes her flinch.

“It’s them,” says Perry, sounding relieved—which means it can’t be anyone related to Fisk. Karen goes to the door, unlocks it, and pulls it open.

Frank stands there. He isn’t armored, but he might as well be—he looks ready for a war. His shoulders are straight, eyes flashing. Astraea swoops into the apartment like she belongs there, alighting on the table where Karen keeps her keys. Perry bounds toward her, scurrying up the table leg.

Karen ignores them both. “You heard.”

“Yeah,” says Frank. His voice is a little rough, like he’s holding something back. “I heard.”

That’s all he says—and it’s all that needs to be said. He heard that Fisk was a danger again, and he came here. He begins to step forward and she holds up a hand in warning. “You shouldn’t,” says Karen. “It’s—I don’t know what’s going to happen. It’s probably going to get bad. The last time Fisk ruled the city… it was bad.”

Frank nods. “Figured as much.” He hasn’t walked into her apartment, and she doesn’t move to make room for him. If he’s going to walk in here, he has to understand what it might cost him.

“People are going to get hurt,” she says.

Frank nods again. “Only more reason for me to be here.”

“Okay,” she whispers. She doesn’t say anything else; she doesn’t need to. She just opens the door wider. He steps into her apartment, into the space she makes for him. There’s a moment of hesitation, when he looks into her face as if searching for answers to questions he hasn’t managed to utter. The door shuts, and Karen realizes she hasn’t even turned on a light. Only the dim glow of the street lights illuminate the shape of his jaw and face.

“You came,” she says, and it’s a nonsensical statement, the kind that only people in shock will utter. But it’s now only really registering that he is here.

“‘Course I did,” he says.

She has to look away. She’s not sure she’ll ever truly be used to that—to knowing that no matter what, Frank—what? Wants to keep her safe? Considers her family?

“Hey,” Frank says, his voice soft. “You’re safe.”

She shakes her head. “It’s not—that’s not what I’m scared of.” She can still hear Wesley’s voice in that warehouse. “I can’t lose any more people.”

“You’re not going to,” he says, stepping closer. His hands settle on her shoulders. “You trust me, right? Trust this: he’s not taking anyone else.”

* * *

Frank doesn’t make promises lightly.

He remembers the night before every deployment, when Lisa was old enough to understand what was happening. She would climb into his lap and whisper that he should promise to come back. He remembers how small she felt in his arms, her dæmon sitting on her shoulder. _I promise, no matter what happens, I’m always gonna love you._

He’s always taken his word seriously. He never wanted to be one of those people who’d utter false reassurances.

But this—this was an easy oath to make.

Wilson Fisk isn’t going to hurt anyone else. Frank is going to kill him first.

Frank leaves, but only after he’s pulled Karen’s curtains shut and double-checked her sidearm is loaded. Part of him doesn’t want to leave at all, but Karen is just as much a hunter as he is—and he trusts her to protect herself. Astraea’s talons are tight against his shoulder. “We need to watch his hotel,” she murmurs. “Get a vantage point.”

“Another building across the street,” he replies. “Ready for this?”

Astraea’s wingtip brushes his cheek. “Let’s kill the viper.”

Together, they stride into the New York night.

And above, they hear the cry of an owl.

* * *

For Karen, the next few days happens in a blur.

The FBI comes to talk to her. An Agent Nadeem questions her while his Newfoundland dæmon literally sniffs around her apartment. Perry glares at the dæmon, his tail lashing and tiny body hunched as if he wants to strike. The Newfoundland eyes him with a level, calm stare. There are questions about Matt, about Fisk and most chillingly of all—about Wesley. Karen answers as blandly as she can, fending him off at every turn. When the FBI leaves, she knows there’s trouble brewing.

And it only takes a few more days for it truly to manifest.

Matt’s alive.

* * *

Frank spends a week sitting on a rooftop with a sniper’s scope. Every day, he watches. And at night, he returns to Karen’s apartment to check on her. She told him of the FBI’s visit, so he’s been careful to look for unmarked government cars, but tonight the street looks normal. He steps into her apartment, using the key she gave him. The place is dark and empty—and there’s a note on the counter.

_Gone to talk to Foggy. Be back around eight. Leftovers in fridge._

There’s no mention of a name, in case someone else were to read this note. Frank smiles, tucks it into his shirt pocket. Then he goes for the leftovers, re-warming them. He and Astraea are eating them on the couch when he hears the footsteps on the fire escape.

Frank sits up. He’s been waiting for this.

Someone comes in through the window.

It’s him.

“Got to say, Red,” says Frank, taking a sip of water. “Black isn’t your color.”

The other man has changed. Death does that to a person. Frank knows that better than anyone.

Murdock tilts his head. “Frank. I didn’t know you were still…”

“Alive?” says Frank.

“In town,” replies Murdock.

Frank wonders what the other man can smell—maybe the dirty sheets in the hamper, the coffee-stained mugs in the sink, or the condom in the trash can.

Whatever Murdock senses, he manages to keep his expression closed. “Didn’t expect to find you here.”

Frank puts the glass down. “Why are you here?”

Murdock’s stance shifts a little. His snowy white owl ruffles her wings. “I need Karen’s help.”

Astraea makes a small sound. “Bullshit,” says Frank. “Why are you here?”

“I need her help,” says Murdock, more firmly. “To take down Fisk. I found a lead—”

“You found a lead?” Frank laughs. It’s a terrible laugh, even to his own ears. “Look at you. Still playing little boy detective, thinking this is some kind of after school special. You think the bad guy’s just gonna roll over when you toss some evidence at the FBI’s door?”

“Frank—”

“No,” continues Frank, ignoring him. “That’s not how this goes. I’ve had some recent experiences with the government lately—so I know exactly how this works.” His voice drops and he leans closer. Astraea’s talons dig into his shoulder. “You’re going to get people killed. Trying to dig up the truth, trying to play the hero.”

Murdock’s jaw clenches. “I’m no hero.”

“At least we agree on something.” Frank exhales hard. “You’re done here, Red. You go back out that window, the way you came. You leave Karen out of this.”

“She’s part of this,” says Murdock. “You can’t protect her from Fisk.”

Frank doesn’t take a swing at him, but it’s a near fucking thing.

“Get out,” he says. “I’ll tell Karen you came by.”

Matt tilts his head. “Will you?”

“Yeah, I will,” says Frank. “Because she’d want to know. And because I don’t lie to her.”

The blow lands. Murdock winces a little, his mouth tightening. He turns and slips through the window, leaving Frank to his unsettled thoughts.

“She’s going to want to help him,” says Astraea quietly.

Frank exhales hard, wishes his water were a beer instead. “I know.”

“What are we going to do?” she asks.

“What can we do?” Frank leans back against the couch. “We’ll keep an eye on Fisk. And when the time’s right…”

Astraea nods.

* * *

But since when has anything ever gone to plan?

The Bulletin gets attacked.

Frank only knows this because he hears it on cop radio he may or may not have liberated from yet another pawn shop. But this time, he left the owner alive.

He hears the crackle of static, the address, the realization that bodies are being brought to the hospital.

Frank isn’t sure how he gets to the hospital. Maybe he runs, maybe he gets a cab. The time is a blur.

Fucking Murdock. Frank knew, he just knew that this would never work. But he let Karen make the choice, knew if she wanted to try and find that witness, she would.

And now she might be dead.

He can’t go inside the hospital. He can’t chance being recognized.

“Go,” he says, and Astraea flies.

There are theories about physical distance from one’s dæmon. Some people can be farther from theirs than others; most people never test those limits because the consequences can range from anything from a migraine to a coma or even death. When Frank was in training, all of the new recruits were required to test their limits. It was put into their files, used in combat situations if needed. Astraea can fly around fifty feet away from Frank without significant pain.

But if she has to, she can go farther.

Frank has done this only twice—once when Lisa was five and got lost in a park, and again in the field that fucked up night when Schoonover got his arm blasted off and Frank knew there was no other choice.

Both of those times, Frank sent Astraea to do her own recon. To fly and hunt on her own.

He feels it when she reaches her limit—it’s like fire being poured into the base of his skull. He grinds his teeth and closes his eyes, holding onto the ledge with white-knuckled fingers.

“She’s alive,” Astraea says. “I spotted her through a window.”

Head splitting with pain, Frank strides down the sidewalk. He takes refuge in the shadows of a hedge and waits. It takes only a few minutes of watching the entryway for Karen to appear. Her head is bowed, blonde hair falling across her face. Everything about her stance is wrong, from the hunched shoulders to the hand crammed in her purse. She’s holding onto her gun, keeping it at the ready even as it’s out of sight. Perry is low to the ground, his eyes roaming across the sidewalk. They’re both behaving like prey, rather than the hunters they’ve always been.

Frank steps out of the shadows, and Karen’s gaze flashes up to meet his. Then her steps quicken and she’s half-running into his arms.

He pulls her roughly against him, so tight it probably hurts. Her fingers knot in his coat and she makes a small sound.

“Hey, hey.” He kisses her hair, her cheek, her hair again. “Got here as soon as I could.” A glance at the ground and he sees Astraea looking over Perry with similar worry. The mongoose leans into her, eyes closing with exhaustion. “Who was it? Heard some cops saying it was Daredevil.”

“Don’t know,” she says. “Wore a mask. But he…”

“What?”

“He knew who I was,” she whispers into his coat. “He called me by name.”

Frank bites back on a curse. That worries him far more than he’ll say aloud—she doesn’t need to carry that, even though she’ll try to take it on. She’ll try to take responsibility for this attack, he just knows it. Even if the blame can be laid fully at the feet of Wilson Fisk.

He takes her back to his place. It’s stark, more utilitarian than hers. The furniture is secondhand and the whole thing is a glorified studio, but it’s also more anonymous, and it has several weapons. If he can break down everything into tasks, into a mission, he can handle this. So he does. He gets Karen out of her clothes, pushes her gently into the shower, then goes to order food. All greasy shit, fried spring rolls and noodles and chicken. It’s hangover food, the comforting kind. Then he changes the sheets on his bed because it’s been a few days since he slept here and they’re a little stale. Astraea keeps watch at the window, her eyes sharp.

When Karen emerges from the bathroom, she’s dressed in one of his shirts. The food is ready and waiting on the counter, and even though she looks at it with dull eyes, she manages to shovel a few mouthfuls of noodles. Perry eats a spring roll with his little paws, then curls up near Karen’s elbow on the couch.

Frank double-checks the locks on the door, pulls the blinds shut, then sits beside them. Astraea hops after him and perches on the arm of the couch. “What happened?” he says.

By now, her voice is a little steadier. “Ellison fired me.”

All of the cobbled-together responses he’s been preparing fall away. “What?” he says blankly.

Karen closes her eyes, touches her fingers to her brow. “I let it slip that I knew the attacker wasn’t the real Daredevil. Which means I know who the real one is. He asked—and I refused to answer. He fired me.” She exhales. “He was right to. I—I got so many people killed.”

“Bullshit,” he says.

“I should have known,” she says. “That he’d send someone, that—”

Frank says, “You want to blame anyone, blame Fisk. Blame Murdock for not stopping this. Hell, you can blame me because I let you go there alone, when I should’ve realized what lengths that piece of shit would go to. I sat on a rooftop and surveilled his apartment while you were fighting for your life.”

She makes a watery sound that’s almost a laugh. “So I’m not allowed to blame myself but you are?”

“I’m a soldier,” he says. “It’s my goddamn job to know when a counterattack is coming.”

“We’re not at war.”

“Could’ve fooled me.” He pulls her against him, kisses her temple. “Tell me what happened.”

She does. It comes in little jerky segments, interspersed with silence as she strokes Perry. When she tells him about the fake Daredevil, his fingers tighten around her shoulder. That man is dead, whether he knows it or not.

“What was his dæmon?” he asks.

She shivers hard. “He—he didn’t have one.”

For a moment, Frank’s sure he can’t have heard her right. “What?”

“He didn’t have one,” Karen says tonelessly. “I didn’t see one anywhere.”

Frank doesn’t know how to reply to that. He’s never heard of someone not having a dæmon. It would be like someone not having a shadow. But right now, there are more important things.

“Now what?” Karen says. She sounds desolate and exhausted, and part of him just wants to take her to bed and curl up around her, to reassure himself with his fingertip against her heartbeat. But he knows she won’t sleep until there’s some kind of plan.

Frank breathes for a few moments. He knows what he wants to say, and there’s no delicate way to say it.

“Look at me,” he says. She looks at him. “Do you want Fisk dead?”

She hesitates, words seeming crowding in on her tongue without emerging. He knows isn’t an easy question to answer. Answers have always been dependent on who asks the questions. If it were her friend Nelson, she probably would have tried to couch her answer in as much truthfulness as she could without shocking him. She would have said something about justice or prison. If Murdock asked—he isn’t really sure how she would have replied.

But this is Frank asking—and he knows that she’s always been honest with him.

Even if the truth is a damning one.

“I want him gone,” she say. “If that means he’s behind bars, great. If that means dead… I wouldn’t shed any tears. But not if it means you getting hurt or caught by the cops. That’s not a price I’m willing to pay, even if you are.” She squeezes her hand around his. “Okay?”

“Okay,” he replies softly. He kisses her, softly and carefully.

They go to bed. Karen is asleep in a few minutes, her mouth still a little tight and her body curled in on itself. Frank watches her back rise and fall, rise and fall, glad for every breath because it means she wasn’t taken from him tonight. No matter what else happened, at least she survived it. He’s a selfish enough bastard that he can take comfort in that.

Astraea is perched on the headboard. “You have a plan,” she says quietly.

He nods. “You gonna disagree?”

A shake of her head. “No,” she says. A glance at Karen and Perry. “I think we made someone a promise. It’s time we kept it.”

* * *

When Karen wakes, Frank is nowhere to be found.

On the pillow beside her is a post-it note. She pries the note free, her thumb smoothing over Frank’s handwriting.

_Stay safe, sweetheart._

And beneath that, a set of coordinates.

Her hand moves across the sheets. They’re cold, which means he left some time ago. Perry perches on the window, looking around outside. But she knows that he won’t see Frank nor Astraea.

Her heart throbs hard in her chest. Karen Page loses people; that is the foundation upon which she has built her life. So perhaps waking to an empty bed shouldn’t be a surprise.

* * *

This is how it goes.

There is a glass of wine. Some red vintage, staining the corners of Fisk’s mouth. He is talking to someone—his mouth moving in silent words. His gaze is on the city. He looks out like a king surveying his lands, like all he sees is conquered territory.

Something slams through the glass. A white cobweb of cracks appears.

The glass of wine hits the floor before Fisk does.

On a nearby rooftop, Frank lowers his rifle.

It’s true that mongooses kill vipers.

But so do birds of prey.

* * *

The fallout is tremendous.

Karen is at a coffee shop when it happens, surrounded by other patrons—witnesses, alibis—and sees the headline break on her phone.

The FBI presumes it’s the Albanians; there is some forensic evidence, something to do with the kind of rifle used. Karen doesn’t know how Frank managed to get his hands on a sniper rifle typically used by the Albanian mafia and she doesn’t ask. She cleared out her desk at the Bulletin that morning, a box full of her things just waiting to be sorted through, and she has a few decisions to make. Perry is eating a cheese scone when she reads the headline, her fingers tightening around the phone. It isn’t safe to text or call Frank right now; the FBI could be monitoring her. So instead, she returns to her apartment and emails her landlord to let him know that she’ll be moving next month.

That night, Matt appears on her fire escape. She sees the snowy owl first, the pale shape of her. Karen opens the window and both vigilante and owl step inside. She has a cup of herbal tea ready for him. “Well?” she says. She isn’t sure if he’s arrived to offer recrimination or just to see if she’s all right. “He’s dead,” he says.

She nods.

“It was Frank,” says Matt. “Wasn’t it?”

“Yes,” she says.

“Shit.” Matt runs his hand through his hair, making it stand on end. “If the FBI connect you to this—”

“They won’t,” says Karen. “Frank isn’t in New York anymore.” She takes a breath. “And soon, neither will I.”

He draws in a short breath. “Karen.”

“I got fired,” she says. “I can’t work for any newspaper in the city. I need a fresh start, someplace else.”

“With him?” There’s an edge to his words, and it makes her want to snap back. But she doesn’t. He’s hurting, too.

“He needs a fresh start, too,” she says. “And so do you, Matt. Foggy—Foggy still believes in you. Don’t take that away from him.”

Pain flickers across Matt’s face and he nods.

“It’s not over,” he says. “That man—the one working for Fisk. It was an FBI agent, I found that out. He’s the one who attacked the Bulletin and he’s disappeared, too. You should keep an eye out.”

“Did you ever find out about his dæmon?” asks Karen.

Matt hesitates, then says, “I did some checking. Turned out he was from some foster program that was doing some screwed up experiments. They cut his dæmon away—that’s why… well. I think that’s why he was the way he was.”

“Shit,” she whispers. If the government is cutting away people’s dæmons to create some kind of super soldier program… that’s something she might want to look into. Later, of course.

Matt gives her a hug and she returns it. Squeezes a little harder than she means to. “Take care, Matt.”

And then the owl and Matt Murdock slip out of her apartment.

* * *

He drives west.

Astraea sits in the passenger seat, the window rolled down so she can smell the scents from outside. He doesn’t like leaving New York first, but the safe house belongs to David, and Frank knows he’ll need to air it out. 

There’s a map on the seat and Astraea keeps looking at it. He just drives, settles into the rhythm of listening to local radio stations and getting gas at old places without cameras. He pays with cash, sleeps in the truck at rest stops.

Frank drives and drives—but it doesn’t feel like running.

He’s moving toward something, instead.

* * *

Perry has never been all that fond of flying, so they take the train instead.

The coordinates are outside of Denver, of all places. Karen plugs them into her phone, shakes her head, and gets on the Amtrak website.

Foggy’s farewell gift—a potted succulent, sits in a cup holder. She went ahead and sprang for a sleeper car, so she and Perry can sprawl in peace. The rumbling of the train and movement lull her into half-doze. After nearly a month of packing boxes, saying goodbyes, getting her mail forwarded to the address Frank sent her, and finally booking her ticket to California, she hasn’t had too much time for sleep.

Not to mention she’s spent most nights wondering if that fake Daredevil or Fisk’s widow were plotting her death. She has kept her gun close. Now that she’s out of the city, headed far away, she can rest a little easier. She texts updates to both Foggy on her normal phone and Frank on her burner. Matt, it seems, is going through the motions to become an alive person again. It seems to require a lot of paperwork and a lawyer—which luckily, is Foggy’s forte.

Ellison sends her an email on her second day of travel. There’s a conciliatory note to it, as if he regrets the words that passed between them but cannot actually say that. She hasn’t seen him since the hospital; he wasn’t at work when she returned to clear out her office. In his email, he says he’ll give her a reference if she needs one.

She isn’t sure we’ll ask for that. Who knows—perhaps being fired for protecting a source might make her even more desirable for some publications.

She closes her laptop and opens a novel instead. Perry sits on the windowsill, watching the world go by.

“We’ve gotten pretty good at this,” he says.

“Travel?”

“Starting out again,” he says, which she can’t argue with.

* * *

Frank and Astraea are waiting at the Denver train station. The last time she saw him, he was in bed. Shirtless, his fingers trailing up her bare shoulder, lulling her to sleep.

Karen steps into the circle of his arms. His hand comes up, touches her cheek.

All it takes is the slightest tilt of her head—and then their mouths meet.

* * *

This is the truth of things. Karen Page loses people.

But sometimes, she finds them again.


End file.
